Poem: Not Your Average Girl

By Yahaira Mayen

I’m not your average girl

I don’t want to stay home and clean,

I don’t want to change my clothes because your compas are coming over for drinks

I don’t need to work as twice as hard, than my brother yet I get no privileges

He goes out with the boys while I stay in my dark room thinking I’m not enough.

I’m not going to be the statics that is heavily placed on every one of us Latinas, expect to be

pregnant, leaving school, staying home

I’m not the exotic spicy sexy JLO you fanaticize

No

I’m a Chicana from Boyle heights and Arlington Heights

Whose worth is much more than my thick thighs and curves that are displayed

I am a Chicana from the hood who is educated, who is a fighter, a survivor, a sister, a comrade

That is breaking all the barriers that my ancestors tried to break for me

I’m continuing their battle with their blood that runs in my veins everyday

I am the ruca, from the block that proudly puts on the dickies, lace up the Nike Cortez,

put on my good hoops as if it’s a crown.

Add the color red to my luscious lips

Soy chigona y chicana

Not your average girl.