Resilient

If there is any one thing you should know about me

it is that I am resilient.

I am the fairytale they won’t recite.

Little Red Riding Hood that could not be duped

by the Big Bad Wolf.

For they do not want to tell you the fairytales

of the dangerous women who won.

Instead, they’ll tell you the stories of the good girls…

heads bowed, eyes wide, and mouths shut.

You see, I am a descendant of all the wild women and their stories

that came before me. The ones the men thought they had burned.

They should have checked the ashes…

for it only takes one wild ember to start a wildfire.

And I guess they have always been afraid of the wild ones.

Little Red Riding Hood who knew precisely what she was doing

when she looked a not-so-gifted bad wolf in the mouth

and invited the…