A hero to no one except myself
Just there to fill up space in a crowded room
Told that the only things I want are fame and wealth

A Ticking Bomb ignited from the start
But neither I nor you know when I'll blow
And all your comfort will be ripped apart

I want everyone, but wanted by none
I'm just an option, never the choice
I'm just a second daughter, when he probably wanted a son

I'm carrying bombs in each of my 20 hands
And expected to blow them all out in a minute
People believe I'm just someone who can count all the sands

When people are partnered up with me
I hear a groan, a sigh, a rejection
But this is not who I am, just who you think me to be

When I look into a mirror, now dusty and haunted
I don't see a ticking bomb like everyone else
Just a girl who wanted to be wanted

I listen to male artists,
Men who remind me of my father,
And his pain,
And my pain.
I imagine they sing to me,
Protect me,
Love me,
Give me all I've never been given before,
Everything I was supposed to feel,
Everything that was supposed to show me how people work.
I listen to deep, strained voices and reflect,
Connect to things I’ll never experience.
Men are angry,
Worthy of their feelings,
Allowed to unleash their rage in screams and electric guitars and unnecessarily loud drum solos.
I listen to music sung by men,
But I also listen to Stevie Nicks,
Joni Mitchell,
Janis Joplin,
Joan Baez,
Even Dolly Parton.
Hell, even Olivia Rodrigo.
I listen to women who are angry,
Angry and still women,
Surviving through agony and still women,
“Leather and lace,”
Black clothes and black makeup,
Singing about beauty and moonlight and darkness,
Female rage.
I don't have to be at peace to be a woman,
I don't have to be happy to be a woman,
I don't have to be pretty to be a woman,
You don’t have to like me for me to still be a woman.
Let me be angry,
Let me feel pain,
Let me be lost,
Let me like the darkness,
Let me find comfort in the night,
Let me chase impossible dreams and impossible feelings,
Let me feel everything I feel.
Women are put in a box of emotions,
Too sensitive,
Too dramatic,
Too simple.
I am not sensitive or dramatic or simple,
Don't put me in that box,
Don’t tell me what I am,
Don’t tell me how to feel,
Don’t tell me what my feelings mean,
What they make me,
Don’t project your weakness onto me,
I am not weak,
I am not weak,
I am not weak.
Let me be raw and witchy and honest,
Let me be intelligent and intuitive,
Let me see more than you'll ever see in the world,
Let me be frustrated and misunderstood and just a little too loud,
Let me be a woman,
Let me be me the way I should be.

i like stories of
fiercely feral girls
who tear from the womb
short-tempered and clench-******
bawling tantrums with red faces
hungry like black holes
starving to scratch, and bite, and scream
to shake the world for not being their own
who have not yet been carved
hollow of their rage
for a lady
does not
roar

i like stories
of girls who will never
be tamed
never give up their
fire because it hurts
who fight unto their final breath
and spit into the face of death

(girls
who are stronger than me).