To Be Female

To be female
is to inhale,
swallow the air as it comes—
To be female
is to exhale,
sigh, and let go.

To let your fire
sink into the floor,
But never let
your breasts sag
Or your ski slope nose
drop.

To be female
is to slice and dice
tomatoes,
fingers
and excel charts.

To be human
is to fight the fire,
to embrace and live
a Life.

To be female is to die,
smile
silently, and
quietly dispose of
your ashes
in the waste-bin
to your right.

To be Woman
Is to inhale,
Take the world as it comes,
To be Woman
Is to exhale
Unhinge your jaw—

Let the phoenix fall out
of your mouth
For to be woman is to burn Bright
To fight for the right
To be Female.

By Kaity Gee

Biography:

Kaity Gee is writer from Bay Area, California, currently studying at New York University. Only eighteen, she has already been making a splash in the creative writing world, winning twenty-three regional and two national Scholastic Writing Awards in addition to other regional and national awards in only the past two years. Kaity’s work has previously been published in Foliate Oak Literary Magazine, Avalon Review, Sweet Literary Magazine, Five:2:One Magazine, and in American Library of Poetry’s anthology, Eloquence. Writing has been an integral part of her life: words have changed Kaity’s life, whether it be on the pages of a classic or her own sprawled onto the parallel veins of an open notebook. She hopes her words breathe life in you. She hopes her words leave you breathless.