by Aija Mayrock
is a journey from girlhood to womanhood through poetry
It is the search for truth in silence
The freeing of the tongue
It is deep wounds and deep healing
And the resilience that lies within us
It is a love letter to the sisterhood
A note from the poet: is comprised of poetry that is sometimes personal and sometimes cries from the collective. is not a memoir, but rather an exploration of the inherent resilience we all share.
The Search for Truth in Silence
The Freeing of the Tongue
Deep Wounds, Deep Healing
With Love
To the Sisterhood
The words that pour from my lips now
come from lips that were sealed
far too many years.
Drown the world in what they do not wish to hear.
That which they do not wish to hear
is truth.
In the quiet of the night
I hear my story.
Not my thoughts,
my truth.
The tethers to my ancestors,
the silk web to my future children.
I hear my birth and my death;
I hear my story
and I realize
it’s not just my story—
it’s the story of the ages.
How we walk gently between
now and eternity.
Dear Girl,
you ask me what I wish for you.
I simply say—
never allow any soul to clip your wings
you were not born an ember,
you were born the flame.
I come from a line of wild women
divine in their pursuit of truth.
For the women I come from
do not run with the wolves;
they lead the pack.
Dear Girl,
oftentimes we women start to rise,
then certain people devise a plan to disenfranchise.
Whether it’s our bodies or rights,
entice us with movements,
unite us through persecution.
Dear Girl,
open your eyes.
We have come so far it’s easy to resign.
We’ve got “equality”
but public policy shows the contrary, honestly.
One in six women could be raped in their lives
and it’s mostly seen as a victimless crime.
What should every girl know?
You are not some puppet in a puppet show.
Expose the double standards,
the hypocrisy, the hate.
It is never too late.
This is the moment of girls taking the reins.
It is Time’s Up.
It is Me Too.
It is everyone from me
to you
who has spoken
or stayed silent
but strong.
And for every survivor who speaks
only to be met
with intimidation, investigation, and disbelief:
Dear Girl,
you will be believed.
If not by Senate floors and investigators,
we will hear you, Dear Girl,
we will see you, Dear Girl,
we will stand by you.
For the survivor three thousand miles away or the one next door,
you are heard.
Justice will not always prevail
but we will continue to fight
tooth and nail.
You are heard.
So that our sisters and daughters will never be asked,
rather
harassed,
whether they wanted it,
regretted it,
or just forgot.
Believe me,
no one forgot.
***
Dear Everyone,
grab ahold of your voice.
It is time to make a choice
to believe survivors
to pay us all the same
to give women of color equal access and opportunity
to protect the safety of trans girls every day.
Make the choice to change the climate,
make the choice not to stay silent.
This is not the era of girls,
this is the future of girls.
I hid my anger for far too long,
buried it in the bowels of my being
and turned it on myself, like a sword to my own neck.
We are taught
anger is ugly.
Dear Girl,
your rage burns bright and when it is felt
it melts into grief, and from that grief
love is born.
There is love so great
it’s like the sun kissing the sea goodnight
as it melts into the horizon.
That love
is a mother’s love.
Dear Mother,
I see your fears baked into how you raised me.
I see them tremble from your lips as you warn me.
I know you are terrified of the world that could swallow
me whole.
But Mother, you need not fear,
because even if I am swallowed up,
I will kick until I am spit back out.
I will fight with the fists you gave me.
I will shout from the gut you built for me.
Dear Mother,
you need not worry.
For I am the warrior you always dreamed you’d have.
I will not go down fighting
because I will not go down at all.
When a girl is born into a world
where she has no control over her body,
she learns to live in a body that is not hers, but owned
by the state.
She grows up to believe that obedience is her middle name.
When a girl is born into a world
that does not value her body,
she learns to exist on the periphery of society
as if growing into her spine is too much to ask for.
Your cruelty is no match for my spirit.
Try to break me
and you will see
love that pours like blood from my wounds.
To break me, you would have to make me hate,
and like I said,
your cruelty is no match for my spirit.
You tell your daughter that she is being emotional, irrational,
yet you tell your son that he is being strong, smart;
you are teaching your daughter to doubt her feelings,
to question her beliefs.
And so when she is mistreated,
she will think back to what was said
under your roof
and believe those gut feelings we speak of
are merely irrational thoughts,
while your son believes every thought he has is fair and right.
Be careful how you raise your daughters.
Be careful how you raise your sons.
When you teach your daughter
that her body is only pure untouched,
you are teaching her
that she can be ruined at the hand of man.
Raise your daughter
to know
that what’s in between her thighs
is hers to own,
whether it be for a woman, man, or anyone to see.
Teach your daughter
that she is a gift
so she knows her worth
but doesn’t feel shame
in sharing her beauty.
Dear Girl,
there is a fire raging inside of you;
do not allow anyone to try to extinguish it:
it is mighty
it is brave
it is you.
And so on those nights
when you think you are broken,
remember the flame
and feel it burn.
Next time they are cruel to you,
listen carefully,
and if you listen
you will hear their pain,
and just like that
you will see their heart.
I don’t know what I’m doing;
all that I do know is
I chase what sets my soul on fire
to the ends of earth,
till the end of time.
When you are lost,
look back at the women you came from,
for they were warriors
and their path
will guide you
to yours.
She has a fire that you can see when you look into her eyes,
flames swallow up her self-doubt.
She always runs toward the storm;
nothing scares her more than turning down a challenge,
nothing scares her more than taping down her wicked tongue.
Bullied and brutalized for my stutter and lisp, for years I did not speak.
One day, I untaped my own wicked tongue.
Letting words climb the rungs of my vocal chords, I began to tell my story.
And I watched their faces in awe as they said to me:
“You are not who we thought you’d be.”
I am the woman I am today
because my father never clipped my wings,
even in disagreement.
I hear his voice,
all pride and no shame, say—
“And, yes, that is my daughter.”
And so I soar.
I soar.
I soar.
Dear Girl,
I wish I could hold you and say
the world will protect you.
But I know it will not,
and in some way,
you, too, know it will not.
Maybe that’s why when people tell you,
“You’re too young to understand,”
you smirk with that twinkle in your eye.
Because the moment you were born,
you were sexualized, objectified,
power never recognized.
Dear Girl,
I know that if this world harms you,
attempts to break you,
you will rise
broken and bruised.
The world is no match
for that flame in your eyes.
This is for all the women who have lived according to the male gaze,
who have been slut-shamed,
who have been trained to fear the dark alleyways,
who have been taught that “No” is not a complete sentence,
that it’s in the “male DNA”,
that accountability is just getting carried away,
that boys will be boys even when they know the difference.
This is for all the women:
do not shrink into that corner,
do not cover your body in shame,
do not silence your own voice
in a revolution that has only just begun.
Raise your daughters like you raise your sons;
the inequality did not begin with her birth,
the inequality begins when you choose to raise your daughter in a box labeled “ladylike”
and your son, in no box, with no label.
When told
your dress begets savagery,
I hope you respond,
“Then it fits me perfectly.”
You savage girl.
Giving girls and women the decision
to take control of their bodies
is equality.
Equality is having access to contraception
with no exception, no stigmatized perception;
a day when women are taught
that their sexuality need not be hidden,
boys are given condoms in high school
while girls are taught to live under a different set of rules—
rules that encourage purity and modesty,
a monopoly on a woman’s body.
I refuse to be ashamed
of the fact
that my body does bleed each month;
it is why we are all here,
and for that
I will not tuck
my tampons into my sleeve
as I scurry to the bathroom.
It really is no secret
that we bleed.
There is a world up ahead
where people are not targeted
for beliefs or bodies
where peace isn’t fantasy,
it’s reality.
Build the world you hope your children will see.
There is no such thing as weak women,
only women
who have not stepped into
their power.
Step into it.
The world is waiting.
You were not born to please,
you were brought here to
disrupt, awaken, and speak truth,
to ease the pain scattered around
and so when you are told to quiet down,
I hope you grow louder.
You are an entire symphony
that needs no applause.
When you are knocked down,
remember
it’s not what made you fall,
it’s what makes you
get back up.
No good revolution came from
safety and security;
revolution begins when you leap into the unknown
and shout from the rooftops:
I am here. Alone or surrounded by thousands. I am here. And I am not going anywhere.
The Truth about Being a Girl
People always say that the girls of this generation are so vain:
“Why can’t they put their brains toward books instead of good looks?”
I used to blame girls too: “Be more than a perfect body and a pretty hairdo.”
But then I stepped into the world
and opened my eyes to the truth about being a girl.
I heard guys say things like, “Dude, she was tighter than that girl you hit and quit.”
or
“I wanna pipe your sister someday.”
or
“Her ass looks like a racetrack with those stretch marks, but at least it’s big like Kim K’s.”
I never grew up thinking of those things.
Don’t blame me, but when I thought about boys,
I thought about dinner dates and soul mates,
not fuckbois that look at you like shark bait.
It breaks my heart for every girl growing up in this world.
Instead of “How was your day?” messages,
we get, “You up? Wanna come fuck?”
I
am not an object.
I have a voice and something to say.
Do not assume that I belong in your bedroom.
I belong in a conference room.
And for anyone who thinks that this generation is so vain,
it’s because we girls are held under a microscope day after day.
***
It’s like
“beautiful” doesn’t even exist
unless you can cross everything off the checklist:
big butt
big boobs
skinny waist
Includes:
small nose
plump lips
bony hips
Hairless,
careless,
but still has an awareness.
In all fairness,
I want to be seen as beautiful too.
I mean,
I don’t want to be demeaned.
I mean,
I am not the same girl I was at fifteen.
I mean,
I am stuck in between
being a girl and a woman.
Growing up in a world
that has taught me to look sexy,
get a degree,
maybe a little rhinoplasty,
but never,
never
disagree with misogyny.
A world that has taught me
that being a woman
means living in fear
that your basic health care
will disappear,
or
that your paycheck
might somehow be smaller
than a man
who does the same job,
or
that your boss will tell you to stop giving him
eyes
“If you want a raise, you gotta compromise.
Show me what lies above those thighs.”
Boy, please.
The moment you misidentified everything,
you forgot
that a hundred years ago
I could not vote.
Look at what happens
when you try to demote
the very bodies
that give birth to you.
Please.
We are used to it all
and we are appalled
but, you see,
we don’t know what it’s like to be free.
***
Equality