From Girl to Woman

She came into the world so small, With laughter bright, a heart so tall. With dreams that soared like birds so free, A little girl of boundless glee. But soon the world began to show, The weight of pain she’d come to know. She learned too young to bite her tongue, To shrink herself, to not belong. They told her how to talk, to stand, To fold her dreams beneath their hand. Her body changed, they stared, they spoke, A voice once strong now wrapped in smoke. She carried fears she could not name, And wounds that bore no visible shame. A girl once dancing in the sun, Now walking roads where fears begun. Yet through the storms, through hurt, through loss, She found herself, she bore the cost. And though the world had made her bend, She rose, unbroken, in the end.