Small
Written by Kelly Ann Wilson

We would like your body more if it was smaller.
We need your emotions to be smaller
Because we don't want to see human despair.

And we need your pain to be smaller
So that we don’t have to do something about it.
We need your response to be smaller
So that we don’t ever have to say
That what we did was not okay.

We need your excitement to be smaller
Because we believe we aren’t allowed to feel all of the joy
Over the things that we love
Like you do.
We need your grief to be smaller
So that we won’t feel
Our grief too.

We need your ambition to be smaller
So that we don’t have to put in the work
To aim as high as you do.
We need your standards to be smaller
So that we don’t have to grow and change to reach them.

We will require your needs to be smaller
So that we aren't asked to rise up and do better.
We need your values to be smaller
So that we don’t have to face who we made the choice to be.

We are going to send all of these messages to you
Constantly throughout your life
Hoping we can slowly chip and scrape away
At all of the things that make you you.
Maybe, little by little with time,
We can wear you down into what we are willing to tolerate.

All of your brilliance and passion and ferocity must be less.
So that we don’t have to feel and be and do more.

You were given a name which means warrior.
But we weren’t ready for a brave girl.

In fact, we'd prefer it if you never spoke up.
Or better yet, were invisible.

Oh, but they should have known a warrior
Wouldn’t let them make her small.

Written July 29, 2023 
© 2023 Kelly Ann Wilson