Underdog
Like a speck of dust,
like a tick on a dog’s belly,
I go unnoticed—the price
I pay as a small girl
in a big world. I’ve been
tossed aside and told,
“You’re too small, too weak,
too quiet, too meek.
You’ll never make it out there.”
For a while, I listened.
Cried myself to sleep
thinking these voices—
both real and mental—
were right. But then I
realized they were all lies.
And I began to speak.
But on the day when
I have something to say,
I’m too sarcastic, too sassy,
told to “Stop being smart.”
Minutes ago, you thought
I was a deaf mute because I
don’t always know what to say.
Now, I’m too smart for you?
I don’t think so.
I have learned to be
my own encouragement
and to tell myself this:
I am brilliant, intelligent,
independent, resilient,
beautiful, phenomenal,
silly, sassy, classy,
poetic, unapologetic, unique.
All compacted into this small body
that is constantly critiqued.
And there is no one else like me.