Photo Credit: Mamu Heidi Dateh
Happy international girl child day. You matter
Where I come from,
girls smile through pain,
“be nice,” they say,
even when your voice wants to shout.
Where I come from,
days loop—
school, chores, a job to support a husband,
then marriage, then repeat.
Ambition? A ceiling we’re told not to touch.
But today,
the girl child rises—
not to fit, not to please,
but to roar, to claim, to be.
Where I come from,
we break the pattern,
we break the silence,
we break the chains.
Today,
we are enough,
our dreams are enough,
our voices are enough.
