class ten

skirts

i cannot say
what a woman is
but i know that
i am more
than my skirt.

as a child
i danced in a ballet class
my pink tutu bouncing about
stiff lace, strutting like a peacock
seducing his prospective mate
heedless of other, i moved
esteem not a concept yet developed
i simply wanted to dance

moving forward
i found myself apart
from the feminine:
other girls playing dress-up
and me climbing trees
i was more of a monkey
than a girl then
primal in social standings
grunting responses, knuckles grating ground
i'd holler if i found a field absent
skirts were not made for running, climbing
my body is my own and i will
not! be limited

still, this pull of freedom
chained only by my
little tow, the last inch of
imprisonment that ties me
the string of adulthood steadily
growing, each fiber expanding
gaining one more and one more
ribbon wrapping into a crisscross around
my foot and up toward my ankle
every pain necessitated by
the life i have not yet chosen
to leave behind: all melding itself
into the scars of weight and burden

i ran from skirts once
because they felt too open
and still too much of a thought
now, i find in them
the ability to embrace that i have
experienced what it feels to run
and to come back
and to fly
and to land
and to breathe
and to let go
and to stop
and to start again