The Poet X

by Elizabeth Acevedo

When your body takes up more room than your voice you are always the target of well-aimed rumors,

How does a girl like me figure out the weight of what it means to love a boy?

My brother was birthed a soft whistle: quiet, barely stirring the air, a gentle sound. But I was born all the hurricane he needed to lift—and drop—those that hurt him to the ground.

what’s the point of God giving me life if I can’t live it as my own? Why does listening to his commandments mean I need to shut down my own voice?

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.

And I knew then what I’d known since my period came: my body was trouble. I had to pray the trouble out of the body God gave me. My body was a problem. And I didn’t want any of these boys to be the ones to solve it. I wanted to forget I had this body at all.

Maybe, the only thing that has to make sense about being somebody’s friend is that you help them be their best self on any given day. That you give them a home when they don’t want to be in their own.

And I think about all the things we could be if we were never told our bodies were not built for them.

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

I only know that learning to believe in the power of my own words has been the most freeing experience of my life. It has brought me the most light. And isn’t that what a poem is? A lantern glowing in the dark.