Daze of Write and Roses

All right...so I finally caved and decided to do OctPoWriMo 2014. It's technically Day 4, so I've got a few days to catch up on. This is for Day 01: Breaking Out of the Box. The title of this poem is from the poem "The Butterfly Jar" by Jeff Moss.

When You Are Here With Me

When I was a little girl
I had a book of poetry called The Butterfly Jar.
The first poem
was all about how thoughts and dreams are like
butterflies.
I thought about that a lot.
I thought about how
my thoughts wanted to be free
my dreams wanted to take flight
my hopes wanted to be shared.

When I was a little girl
I had a lot of ideas about what to be when I grew up.
I wanted to be
a nurse
or a teacher
or a stay-at-home mom
or an Olympic gymnast
or a lawyer
or a minister
or a pilot
or a ballerina
or a famous musician
or an astronaut
or an actress.
I thought a lot about what I would do.
I thought about what would happen
if I got to do one of these things someday
if I became somebody famous
if someday they wrote books about me.

When I was a little girl
I had people who would ask me what I wanted to be.
I would tell them what I dreamed about
on that particular afternoon.
And they would almost always tell me
that I would never do it
that it would take too many years
that I didn't have what it took
that I wasn't smart enough
or pretty enough
or thin enough
or good enough
I
wasn't
enough
for any of them.

When I was a little girl
I spun my chrysalis
not to nurture my ambitions
but to protect me
to shield me from a world that didn't believe
in the power of my dreams
to block out the sounds of doubts
but what I didn't realize
was that locking out everyone else's doubts
just left me locked in with my own.
I didn't care
because at least I was safe
at least no one would kill my butterflies
before I was ready to let them free.

When I was a young woman
people started asking me again what I wanted to be.
I told them that I wanted to be
a writer.
And my grandparents told me
it was a waste of time
and my father told me
it wouldn't pay
and my mother told me
I'd better have something to fall back on.
And then I met my friends
my sorority sisters
my writing group
and they
told
me
yes
they told me that I could do it
they told me that I would do it
they told me that they wanted to see what I had written
and I showed them
and they asked for more.

When I was a little girl
I spun a chrysalis to protect myself.
And when I was a young woman
I found friends who put me in a safe place
where I could be nurtured and grow.
And now
I
am
free.