Little Girls

I have always been defined as a little girl. Even as I age people still look down at me. This is a poem about the dangers and expectations for little girls.

Little Girls


Little girls should stay at home
There’s danger on the street
Man move to walk beside them
Protect them from shadowy figures
with dark thoughts haunting
their wandering hands

Little girls should work
behind high, impressive desks
The real fighting’s for the men
who can shoulder hard words
While pretty hands can type busywork
and keep their smiles clean

Little girls should stay at home
and tend to little ones new
telling soft stories of simple pleasures
and avoiding all trouble
For trouble can grow terror
that will come for you in the night

Little girls with eyes like yours
must always keep your face down low
You wouldn’t want to catch the eye
of some strange passerby
The grasping of a hungry soul
Little bones so easily crushed

Little girls like you
are backed up in a corner
Too weak to move about
Too pitiful to speak
Little girls like you
have no way out