When I was sixteen I thought I had become a woman.

I thought the way boys looked at me was enough

to validate the experience of a woman that I plastered on my chest

I am a woman, I told myself.

I looked like the girls I saw on tv,

Girls who rented their bodies to those who they found validation in,

but only lost pieces of themselves to.

I was not a woman.

A woman does not seek validation, she is enough.

She is more than enough.

Her glass is not to be passed around or filled up.

A woman understands that she is the sun, a bright burning star,

a star that is admired and loved; a star that will never be dimmed.

She is the center of her universe.