When I was about nine years old,
I wanted to be a boy.
In my mind, boys had everything.
Boys had it easy. Boys had it made.
I didn’t get along very well with
other girls because I would
rather be covered in mud than
in makeup. I would rather
skin knees than stab backs.
Boys ran their mouths and
ran the school while my
patience ran a little bit thin.
But that’s not what girls did.
Girls kept pretty and girls
kept quiet and girls kept
themselves together.
When I was about nine years old,
I realized the biggest difference
between boys and girls to me
was that boys never seemed
to think before they spoke
and I would watch girls
swallow their words like
they were pills made
for horses.
But to boys, there was more
than just that. There was
something in them that
told them girls were weak,
when all I could see was the
strength seeping out of their
pores as they bit the strongest
muscle in their body until it bled.
There was something in
them that told them
girls were worse, when
all I could see was every girl
in a race to better themselves
before the ideal image
of a perfect girl changed
once again.
Even at nine years old,
there was nothing better to me,
than girls.
But I wanted to be a boy, I think,
only because I wanted, just once,
to be picked first to play ball,
to show them I could run just as fast,
kick just as hard,
win just as fiercely.
I wanted to prove myself,
as a girl, that I could be everything
a boy was,
and then some.
When I was about nine years old,
as I hurriedly tried to tie up
my shoes to race others
to the field,
I heard the phrase:
“You can’t play for our team,
you’re a girl.”
I remember thinking,
“But why does that make a difference?”
Until I turned fifteen years old.
When I was about fifteen years old,
I realized that I did not want to
be a boy any more.
I wanted the freedom and
the power and the worth
every boy I grew up with
felt he had.
I wanted to be an equal.
When I was about fifteen years old,
and heard,
“You can’t play for our team”
as I laced up my heartstrings
like a pair of battered cleats,
I learned to say, with a huge smile,
and a nod, remembering
girls and their strength
and their beauty and their poise
and their ability to keep everything
in and everybody out and
hold together a family or bring
down an army,
“It’s okay. I play for the other team
anyway”.
annaxmalina
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