Punch Like A Girl - By Bea Burayag

Punch Like a Girl

Yes, I punch like a girl.

Like a girl, I punched a boy in the face at school because he called my best friend ugly. I broke his nose too.

Like a girl, I bleed a massacre’s worth of blood every month and power through invisible hits and stabs Mother Nature throws at me for five days straight.

Like a girl, I take society’s insults and demands of what my body should be and having them shoved down my throat since the day I was born.

Like a woman, I choose to reject those demands.

Like a woman, I refuse to settle for a man who’s so far up his ego that he doesn’t even know the meaning of respect, appreciation and communication.

Like a woman, I will always sneak another any pad or tampon should her period creep up on her and never let her suffer through those cramps alone.

Like a woman, I will define who I am going to be and what my life will hold, never allowing the limitations of societal demands stop me from pursuing my dreams.

Like a Queen, I will pursue those dreams.

Like a Queen, I am breaking the rules of what a woman should look like, with every stomach roll and stretch marks, with the rubbing of my thighs and my not so flat stomach, there will not be a person alive who can tell me I’d be pretty if I lost weight.

Like a Queen, my body has the ability to birth an entire human through a 3 inch hole and nurture it for 18 years when there are men out in the world taking work off for a hangover.

Like a Queen, I will raise any woman who has fallen, wipe away her tears and fix her eyeliner, telling her to hold her head high with pride. It better balances her crown.

Like a mother, I will teach my daughter how to punch like a girl.