What can a teenage girl be passionate about without being called hysterical?

We are all 

Dragon fire

Sharp lipstick stains

On the edge of lightning

Girls about to be women

Ready to take on the world but also terrified

To step into it

We

Are the ones who were born told

That we could do anything 

Before we were allowed to think that we couldn’t

We 

Are the ones told that boys 

Are beautiful, and women 

Are, too

We are the ones who had to discover for ourselves 

That some boys are filled with venom 

And beauty at the same time

We are the ones who had to make a code to

Figure out which ones were which

Ask a girl the first time she was afraid,

She won’t tell you 

About a spider.

We are the girls who want 

To be ready with poison on our tongues

But instead come up with a mouth full of butterflies

We are the girls who could

Destroy 

With one glance

And all we can find in ourselves is more love to give 

Then we should. 

More love for those who have hurt us.

We are the ones who learned

To carry self defense mechanisms

Along with our pepper spray

We learned the sentence 

“Humor is a coping mechanism”

Before we knew what trauma was

We learned 

The darkness behind words

That we weren’t yet supposed to know.

We are the girls 

Who know how to flirt with a boy

While texting a friend 

The steps to calm down from an anxiety attack

In the same breath

We are the girls

Who learned languages 

On the same phone we used 

To try and find how 

Our own anatomy worked because,

Sorry,

But my skin isn’t color-coded to be easy to read

We are the girls who were only ever taught

To compare and contrast our trauma,

That it does not matter unless it is worse

We are the ones who had 

To teach ourselves

That the girl next to you 

Is not your enemy

She is the only one who will be fighting next to you in your battle.

We are the ones who went to protests

When we weren’t old enough to walk

Who grew up on a rhetoric of change,

And then,

Proposed it happened, 

And watched everything go down in flames,

We are the girls 

Who had to hear a president

Talk about how our bodies were 

Violatable

How our voices did not matter

We are the ones 

Who had to hear 

One of our own step up to our own country

And say that her religion could dictate 

Our bodies 

We grew up without anger

We grew up knowing that the only people 

We were allowed to be angry at 

Were ourselves.

You cannot hurt the men,

They are only allowed to hurt you

We grew up knowing 

That the only people

You will ever be able to hurt

Are the same ones that you only want to hold up.

We have fire in our lungs 

And cold in our bones,

We have love running through our veins,

And stardust dripping from our tongues

With every word we say,

And yet,

We are terrified to speak

Because 

What can a teenage girl be passionate about without being called hysterical?