I am myself

Until this day, I have not known what it is to be empowered.  I know what it is to understand and to find meaning, but today I have found myself.  I am woman, and I inhabit all of the extremes and their centers.  I hate and love in equal and all measures.  I cannot be moved in my convictions by the height of terror, nor the depth of emotion, not the breadth of reason, nor the gentleness of a whispered plea.

I am woman, though I do not ask you to hear my roar.  By the time you hear it, your time will have passed and I will be roaring in triumph.  For I live in the extreme and I harness its power to ground me in my center.  I am capable of the deepest, most tender love, a mother’s love for her baby.  And I am capable of the most horrible and relentless rage, a rage that will destroy all who stand in my way.  I am a well of ceaseless and boundless energy, and I am a pool of absolute and total calm within my own chaos.  I am a Fury, beautiful and terrible to look upon, and I alone rule my world.

I am myself, I am whole, and I live for me and mine.  Cross me, and I will reduce your existence to a compact world filled entirely with pain and misery.  Hurt one of my own, and I will be your slow and dreadful demise.  I am the loving hands that welcome you into the world and the cold grave pulling you out of it.  I give life and bring death.  I am woman.