Go Girl! by Kaylia Walker

Look at you girl, with your smile on your face waiting to take on the the world. Yeah look at you girl with your hardworking tail not giving a damn about what a man got to say. Yes! we see you girl or should I say woman, when you walk that tall walk with you swaying your hips, look at you, speaking that calm language with your soothing voice and words of confidence you're all we want to be, can’t you see the way we look when we look at you and see you walk when you walk or when you talk when you talk yeah, you go girl!

Lady in a Glass Dress by Faith Smith

Meet the lady in the glass dress

Here lies her pain

She waltz inside the darkest room and you can still see her veins

Lady in the glass dress, where do you remain?

Do you realize that your journey is filled with nothing but depression?

Even the oppressed know that this is beyond stretching

And you are stressing

Lady in the glass dress, who are you?

Where lies your truth and what will get into you?

Where will you be?

Who will you become?

It seems to me as if your story will always remain undone

Your start is never your finish

And your end seems to be another beginning

Lady in the glass dress, what lies beyond thy self?

What is your worth?

What can you become?

For that is unknown

You’re lost in the shadows, broken and disturbed

You’ve disappeared while life goes on around you

You’re in despair and sit in your sorrows that are supposed to be around you

Lady in the glass dress, guess what, I am you

You’re apart of me that I just can’t shake loose

You’ve become my weakness, something I see straight through

Against all odds, I still have you

I want you gone because you can’t stay

But even when I try to push you away you still remain my biggest mistake

And my motivation and self esteem as a young woman all gets erased

A Real King by Kaylia Walker

Maybe my skin is a little too dark for your taste, maybe my hair is a little too big to fit your liking, maybe my crooks and curves isn't in the exact place that pleases you but who are you to judge me? See I am a queen fit for any king no matter race or religion but you, you are not a real king because a real king doesn't judge the young queens of the world based off her physical a real king thinks about her spiritual. A real king doesn't see her race as a problem nor a situation that has to be "fixed" A real king is mindless too the darkness of his queen because a real king knows that what Tupac Skakur said is true that "the blacker the berry the sweeter the juice and the darker the flesh the deeper the roots" so if you're not a real king, what are you?

To the Woman Who Got it Wrong by Gabrielle Gousman

Dear Woman,

What is your problem?

Who taught you that your only purpose

Is to please ‘the Man’?

Was it your mother and her mother before her?

Were you brainwashed by society?

Or maybe you learned from all the men in your life.

Dear Woman,

Who told you you only matter when you look ‘attractive’?

That you can only be heard with your clothes off?

That your privates are the best part of you?

Dear Woman,

Who taught you to be seen and not heard?

To shrink into yourself until you’re almost not there at all?

Who taught you not to take up His space too much?

Dear Woman,

Who taught you not to love yourself?

Who taught you not to take solidarity in other women?

That loving another woman, even loving yourself,

Is wrong.

I was taught that He is the problem.

That Man is the enemy and Women are saviors.

I was taught by the women before me.

I was taught Sisterhood,

Self-love,

Love of woman kind.

I was taught the bitterness of a woman to a man.

Dear Woman,

Which one of us got it wrong?

Trapped by Faith Smith

     Sometimes you never know what you’re up against. Being a girl, a young girl in society, I’m held to a lot of expectations. Straight hair, light skin, slim waist, beautiful face. I drown in the thoughts that trap me from what is on the outside of an individual. I choke on the burdens of being considered a “phenomenal woman.” I am depressed. I tip toe across the edge of the suicide we call society. I’m not considered human. I am not normal. I am not what I’m supposed to be—an American with pride. Instead, I curse myself into the nightmares of being me. I blame myself for being a part of a world that doesn’t need me

Dear America by Gabrielle Gousman

Dear America,

Why can’t you hear me? Why can’t you see me? Why is it that every time I speak you seem to think you talk over me? Or ignore me altogether? Do you think I’m not good enough? Or that you’re better than me? Why? You live in a country that was built off the backs of my people. Those pretty southern mansions that you call “family manors” were built by my ancestors. Are you afraid that if you acknowledge my power it’ll lessen your’s? Are you afraid that I’ll take over? Afraid that one day I, a strong black woman, will run this little country of your’s? Is that why you make “colorblind”, so that they won’t acknowledge people of color, people like me? No, that can’t be it. Because, you see, ignore your own kind. Your white men go out and run this country while you leave your women unheard and ignored. But at least they exist, in this country not only am I not heard but I am not real. To be a black woman in America is to be magic, but it also to be the one that no one sees.

From,

A Black Woman In America

I Welcome You by Kaylia Walker

Welcome to my laboratory, where I keep my eldest secrets, a place that knows more about me then I know myself, welcome to the place that holds my self doubts and the place who remembers every single flaw apart of me, welcome to the place that holds my insecurities, the place that reminds me that even though I am in America, the land of the free me myself has limited freedom,  to the place where people words haunts me, the place that has no boundaries, welcome to the place that picks me apart inch by inch and show the raw form of me, the place that always lets me know that I am a female in the dark who's scared to really glow not because of what people questions, comments or concerns might be but simply because I am a female and supposedly, according to society I am not allowed to break from my strict role, welcome to my mind, where I can never forget, welcome to my cell where I can never escape, I welcome you with open arms to see where the hatred for my gender lives, I welcome you into my own personalized hell.