If I were a boy (First published in an anthology put together by Tarleton State University)

Flowers in the night sky, blooming flowers:

red, blue, yellow, orange, green.

Popping that could be gunfire, but I’m not scared.

I watch the whistling, popping flowers bloom.

The cold doesn’t bite as bad as the mosquitoes,

but neither bug me.

My eyes drink in the beauty,

as my dad drones on about danger and fire.

I don’t care; I tune him out.

My body urges me to leave,

I had too much water.

My brother dances too, but dad says:

“Go in the bushes.”

“Can I go in the bushes?”

I plead.

But I’m a girl.

I have to go inside.

I have to miss the blooming, popping flowers,

because I’m not a boy.

At a sermon, Dad reads, straight from the KJV

“One in a thousand men, I found…

But in ten thousand, not one woman.”

It wouldn’t be so hard to be good,

If I were a boy.

I want to paint, but painting is man’s work I’m told.

“You can do anything you want,

as long as it’s feminine,” they say.

“Can I grow up to be president?”

Mom says a woman can’t be president.

I can learn to cook,

but “Men make better chefs,”

a friend of my dad’s reminds me.

“Women drivers are good

at causing wrecks and mayhem,” my father says.

My brain hurts from staring at the paper.

I can’t do the problem.

I would be smarter,

if I were a boy.

My dad tells me what to do.

When I grow up, it will be my husband.

I can’t choose for myself.

“Women are subservient.”

I have to obey.

If only I were a boy.

I would be the eldest male,

Rather than girl number two.

My father would love me more.

My mother would cherish me.

But I am only an inferior copy of my older sister.

The girl who learned to read when she was five

But I still struggle.

The girl who shows no fear,

While I cower.

I wouldn’t be so scared,

If I were a boy.