Dedicated to the memory of all those young people who struggled to fit into the norms dictated by their communities and who lost that battle. May the second wind in your sails be glorious and joyful.

LISTEN TO THE POEM BEING READ AT: https://vm.tiktok.com/ZSde5UerP/?k=1

I’m going to tell you a little story
Of a girl who loved too much, 
Lived too much, hoped too much.
They said, she was too much!
She was a queen, a young one
But she had that zest for life
That is so rare and beautiful 
That is also so ominous and direful

The story goes that she was born
In the wrong place at the wrong time
Nothing seemed to feel right in fact.
She was told to be someone that
She wasn’t. She was taught, against her will
To be the clone of a fantasy
That had persisted for centuries

And so the queen crumbled 
Atom by atom, bit by bit, little by little
She fell apart like a young sapling
That has been buffeted and knocked about
By righteous winds whipped up
By those who were afraid of her
Of our queen getting out of the box
That they had so faithfully built for her

She finally broke into a million pieces
And she plummeted
She had once known how to fly like an eagle
To soar up to the top of the world.
But that memory was gone; pounded out
And so she fell
Hitting the ground six feet deep
And that is where she now sleeps.