I was probably seven years old when I learned
That pink was the worst color of all.
Pink was shame.
Pink was limp-wristed, empty-headed frills and ribbons.
Pink was for girls.
Pink was for me.
Pink was crammed down my throat
In clothing stores, room décor and Happy Meal Toys,
And I started spitting it back out and insisting,
“My favorite color is blue.”
I was eleven or twelve when I started regurgitating not just pink,
but everything that came with it.
And what came with it was skirts, nail polish, lip gloss,
And stupidity. Inferiority.
I was a quiet set of vocal chords in a sea of vapid giggling.
I was Not Like Other Girls.
She wore high heels, I wore sneakers.
In my blue jeans and Harry Potter hoodie,
I was a giant among the intellectually starved.
I mean, I never really talked to them.
But I was better off. I was smarter, I was different.
I was so certain.
I was sixteen when Malala Yousafzai
Appeared on the cover of her book
In a pink headscarf.
She had come within a hair’s breadth of losing her life
For daring to believe that girls deserved better.
She was a warrior, and she wore pink.
My hero and role model was a manic-depressive violinist
who had been to hell and back inside a mental hospital.
Her hair and the icing on her cupcakes were pastel pink.
Girls at school who went out of their way to smile at me
And tell me how much they liked my outfit on any given day
Sometimes could be seen in pink Abercrombie T-shirts.
I was sixteen when I thought
That if I got a bouquet of roses after finishing the winter play,
It would maybe be okay if they weren’t red.
When I am twenty-five,
There is a chance I will have a daughter.
I will watch her grow and learn
And put her soul together piece by piece.
I will watch her fall and scrape her knees every now and then
But I will tell her every time
That she is strong, she is tough, she is steel.
She is radiance, brilliance, glowing from the inside out.
When the world tells her she is beautiful,
I will tell her she is beautiful and infinitely more.
And if she asks me,
I will paint her bedroom pink.