When I Was a Little Girl

Wasn’t it only yesterday?

It feels as if it had been only yesterday when I was a little girl and I looked out the window and I saw.

I saw it all: the world its colors its rage.

I was a little girl but I saw all the things that were wrong and yet I was told there was nothing that could be done.

the world is as it is and you are just a little girl nothing you can do you are small nothing you can do you are a girl nothing you can do

When I was a little girl I was taught the world was full of cruelty.

Nothing but hardship on the horizon nothing but pain.

I was told hope had no place on this Earth of us nor did dreams or joy or actual love.

No love for you, little girl, you haven’t earned it. No dreams for you, little girl, you better squash them.

Even though I was a little girl, I knew I damn knew they were lying.

My heart knew it damn knew that love is all around that hope never ends that dreams live forever that joy is my fate.

I was a little girl… I am a woman now.

No longer little. No longer small. I have kept the girl alive… she lives in me, and I live for her we are one and the same.

Now I know I was never small and my dreams were never little.

My hopes rise up my love swims across oceans and I have put my rage to good use.

I am that girl, I am that woman. I am here. And about that window?

Heck, I am now on the other side of it. I bathe on the storm I drink up the colors I walk on this Earth I lay claim to my place and I love it.

I love it.

You can watch a reading of this poem in the following video: