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When I Was a Girl
by Anita MacWhen I was a Girl
I wanted nothing more than to be just like my brother,
And behaved accordingly:
short hair,
adventure books,
dirt and grass, and
skinned knees, and
climbing trees—
and the rusty poll that held the street sign for McKenna.
When I was a Girl
my Girlhood was not gendered to me,
for others though—
adults—
it needed to be clear that I
was a girl,
was still a girl when acting like a boy.
Tomboy.
A word I could not shake well into Womanhood
When I was a Girl
we played in the woods between houses,
pretending to be elves
rough-hewn bows and fishing poles
(old broken branches and braided kitchen twine).
We danced in the Fresh Air,
lived out stories of
adventure
soul-mates
hardship—
No understanding of
romance
gender
sexuality.
Concepts that had not yet captured us and held us in place.
When I was a Girl,
I was simply free to Be.
Wild and unruly as any other Child.
05/04/2025 Posted on 05/04/2025
Copyright © 2025 Anita Mac
| Member Comments on this Poem |
| Posted by Laura Doom on 05/07/25 at 10:15 PM A pleasure to play in your Wildhood memories |
| Posted by Johanna May on 05/09/25 at 02:47 AM Sis! Same, tomboy girl here until now although I prefer sausage than oysters hehe. We are complex, complex creatures this world tries to simplify into labels. I feel only poetry interprets us in our truest. |
| Posted by Richard Vince on 07/13/25 at 08:08 AM Wonderful, as always. :) |
| Posted by Philip F De Pinto on 11/28/25 at 02:52 PM Reading this, I found myself quite enriched, by words which fed my thirst, held me in thrall, in sway from the first. |
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