The Poet X

by Elizabeth Acevedo

When I’m told girls Shouldn’t. Shouldn’t. Shouldn’t. When I’m told To wait. To stop. To obey. When I’m told not to be like Delilah. Lot’s Wife. Eve. When the only girl I’m supposed to be was an impregnated virgin who was probably scared shitless. When I’m told fear and fire are all this life will hold for me. When I look around the church and none of the depictions of angels or Jesus or Mary, not one of the disciples look like me: morenita and big and angry.

When I’m told to have faith in the father the son in men and men are the first ones to make me feel so small.

Just because your father’s present doesn’t mean he isn’t absent.

The world is almost peaceful when you stop trying to understand it.