It causes me to color my hair and paint my lips
And enjoy a new outfit more than politics
It surges through me with waves of emotion
Sometimes hard to navigate and harder to explain
It helps me fall in love at the drop of a hat
With children and men and older women
It makes me bleed and break down every month
Now that I am older, I see how the hormones rule
It gives me pride in cooking and sewing
But hate the stereotype of doing these things
It makes me suspicious of men at work
And nervous around prettier, richer women
It calls me to grow a garden to feed my family
I think about hope and morality and world peace
It allowed me to bear a child; a soul overcoming matter
I can still please my man: make him sigh and stumble
What is this thing, I was given, called womanhood?
I used to want to be a man, because it seemed easier.
Now I wouldn’t want it any other way.