You’re being too loud.
Loud?
That is was my teacher told me when I was only six
At six years old I had received my first criticism
I made it my mission to turn quiet.
To fade into the background.
To let my voice hide away as I sat quietly.
I was too loud.
You’re being too quiet.
My teacher the next year told me when I was seven.
Quiet?
I didn’t understand how I could move from too loud to too quiet in a year.
Still I allowed the words to drill themselves into my mind.
I never liked the thought of quiet
I made it my mission to be loud.
Not so loud that I annoyed everyone around me
But not too quiet so that I would fade into the background
I was too loud and too quiet.
You’re too boyish.
My teacher told me this when I was nine.
I looked around at the students surrounding me
I couldn’t find a difference between them and me.
I couldn’t see what made me boyish.
That was when I learnt, clothes and colours have genders just as much as people do.
I stopped wearing my blue shorts and replaced them with a pink dress and buckle shoes.
I was too loud, too quiet, and too boyish.
You’re too girlish.
My boy-friends told me this when I was eleven.
They said thats why they didn’t want to play with me.
I took off my pink dress and put on a blue one.
Then I believe that the blue turned me into a boy
But the dress made me look like a girl.
It was perfect.
I was too loud, too quiet, too boyish and too girlish.
You’re too sarcastic.
My friends told me this when I was twelve
I didn’t understand.
How could I be a word I didn’t even know the meaning of?
I googled it when I got home.
Google told me it meant I used irony to mock people as a joke.
My next google search was ‘what does irony mean’.
I told myself to never be sarcastic again.
I told myself that it would make people see me in an ugly way
I didn’t want to be ugly.
I was too loud, too quiet, too boyish, too girlish and too sarcastic.
You’re too nice.
My friends told me this when I was thirteen.
I didn’t understand how being too nice was bad.
They told me it made me a push-over.
I then decided to learn the word ‘no’.
I then learned to stop smiling and being polite.
I was too loud, too quiet, too boyish, too girlish, too sarcastic and too nice.
You’re too much of a nerd.
My friends told me this when I was fourteen.
They told me this when I talked about things I loved.
Like reading, Harry Potter and Marvel.
They told me I was a nerd because I liked what I liked and got excited about it.
I buried that part of myself the next day.
I stopped talking about what I enjoyed, and once again I began to fade into the background.
I heard my first words of criticism at the age of six.
Like any other child wishing to be liked I over-corrected.
Again and again and again.
I did it until the little girl that was told she was too loud was finally silent.
I am sixteen.
I am too loud.
I have loud opinions and thoughts and I share them with the world
I have a loud mind and an even louder voice to pare with it.
I get told I am too loud.
But what must I do with a world screaming at me if not to scream back.
I still fall silent.
I am quiet on the days I am too tired to be loud.
I have learnt not to have that silence make me fade into the background.
I am loud and quiet and boyish and girlish and sarcastic and nice and nerdy.
I don’t think the ‘too’ belongs in the sentence anymore.
I am merely someone who wants to know what it is like to be loved and that is all I wanted.
But no one loved me.
Not when I was me.
Not when I corrected.
I have learnt that those are the people you must leave behind
Because I am a girl who is fighting for a seat at the table
And I want to be me when I get there.
Not what I am told to be.