<h2>“Short” By Leah Spaulding</h2>
<p>Short&#8230;</p>
<p>Too short. Or too plain. Or you&#8217;re never gonna get a man looking like that.<br />
Men like women who are pretty, who take care of themselves.<br />
These are just snippets of the things I&#8217;ve heard.<br />
The vapid words from people who don&#8217;t get it.<br />
My entire life I&#8217;ve felt out of place<br />
Because women should be dainty and paint their face<br />
But I never did.<br />
And women should be strong, of course!<br />
But don&#8217;t lift too much weight<br />
Or stray too far from the course<br />
That society has set for you.<br />
Society wants a &#8220;strong woman&#8221;<br />
But not too strong though, that&#8217;s intimidating<br />
Society wants a &#8220;good woman&#8221;<br />
One who&#8217;ll stick to her chores without complaining<br />
But how can she be degraded and still stand so tall<br />
In a society that loves to watch her fall?<br />
In a society that loves to pay her less<br />
And never quite celebrates her success.<br />
In a society that feeds off her insecurities<br />
Forcing her to stress and fix her every impurity.<br />
But don&#8217;t worry, I&#8217;m sure there&#8217;s some kind of cream or diet plan for that<br />
Because she can&#8217;t be too bossy or too bitchy<br />
But god forbid she&#8217;s a doormat<br />
In short, society wants a woman who&#8217;s strong like a man<br />
Yet submissive enough to understand<br />
That her worth on this earth<br />
Is dictated by a length and a girth that she doesn&#8217;t have.<br />
What we don&#8217;t realize is that if we didn&#8217;t give a shit<br />
About the beauty standards they push with grit<br />
Then they would be powerless<br />
And power is everything.<br />
We need to come together to gather that power<br />
In which every woman can bathe and shower<br />
Empowering each other to stand together<br />
Empowering each other to stay strong and weather<br />
This storm that&#8217;s raging<br />
This storm we must persevere through<br />
For every woman is part of this boat<br />
That must work together to keep afloat<br />
So the next time you see a girl with short hair<br />
Who doesn&#8217;t quite wear what you would wear<br />
Instead of gawking and scoffing and trying to tear<br />
Help uplift her.<br />
We will not fall short.</p>
<p><strong>Author Bio</strong>:<em> Leah Spaulding is a 23 actor/musician from Jersey City, NJ. She got inspired to write poetry as a therapeutic way to help heal from trauma and also as a creative outlet for her more abstract pieces. She wants her poems to resonate with people and always tries to write from a place of utmost honesty. She hopes that she can help other people heal with her poetry. @leahspaulding<br />
</em></p>
<p><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-2834" src="https://rockthepigeon.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/leah-spaulding-headshot-1.jpg" alt="Leah Spaulding headshot 1" width="640" height="800" /></p>