When does a girl become a Woman?

When does a girl become a Woman?

I used to think,

It’s the passage of time,

The arrival of breasts,

The shedding of scarlet blood from her pussy,

The number of trips she’s made around the sun.

Or,

The act of giving birth,

Of adding a new rung beneath her on humanity’s ladder,

No longer being the bottom of her lineage.

But none of these things turn a girl into a Woman.

I know 88 year old mothers who died with their Woman still trapped inside and underneath,

Strangled by deference, martyrdom, the need to save others and the need to be saved,

All these pieces that hold hostage one’s Desire.

And maybe most of all,

A fear that

Wanting something

And saying so

Could undo the very fabric of the universe,

of relationships,

And destroy everything she knows herself to be.

A girl makes sacrifices

for love,

to be liked,

to keep them happy,

whoever they are.

A girl lies to herself,

abandons herself,

and wonders,

“Why does a life that looks this good feel this hollow?”

What if a girl becomes a Woman when she is no longer afraid to touch the burning coals of her Desire?

When she trusts It as much as she trusts the sun to shine and the moon to cycle?

When she trusts that whatever It destroys, It destroyed because something more will be built on its ashes?