At five years old, you should be running, hopping, skipping and jumping.

You should be able to hop and stand on one foot.

You should know how to read aloud 

& write some letters and numbers. 

And you can even produce rhymes.

My mom always said that I was advanced.

I took my first steps at nine months old

And in the third grade, Mrs. Alderson said that I could read at a college level.

But maybe the universe taught me how to advance too much.

You see, at five years old, I knew how to run.

Run, out of your uncle’s room,

Jeans still unzipped as I hopped the opposite direction of my mother. 

I could skip to the bathroom to brush my teeth after my enamel met with his saliva.

I could even jump onto the couch as soon as I heard my father’s keys rattle the door while my own uncle pulled up his pants. 

Perhaps, I was always too advanced. 

When I was sixteen, I knew how to be quiet the next time a boy groped me at school because I had already been in a courtroom at a young age-- so why go again when you’re already advanced? 

Once again, I could run, skip, hop, jump--

All the way down the corridor so 

I am not late to my first period

All while wondering if within the next month I would even GET my period.

All the way down from home economics down to the principal’s office, 

Just so he can tell you that he does not believe that so-and-so’s son is a predator.

You see, I was advanced. 

I was able to do “big girl” things at a young age.

Mommy! Daddy! Aren’t you proud of me?

I am so advanced in the world, 

But maybe, just maybe, the world is not as advanced as me.

I can run and skip and hop out into the real world,

But I will never be “advanced enough” to convince my tia that her son took photos of me naked, 

I suppose I was just that advanced that I knew how to sync them onto his computer after I took them myself.

I can run and skip and hop from story to story to tell people what they want to hear but I will never be “advanced enough” to be able to report a rape case against an upperclassman without earning a two-day suspension.

I will never be advanced enough to be the stereotypical shut-your-mouth-and-do-the-dishes woman who belongs to a man.

I will never be advanced enough to be the happy-go-lucky girl who spreads her legs to everyone to advance her grade in “sex education.”

I will never be advanced enough to tell you how my GPA is not as high as the times I have caught men eyeing me up and down in Walmart as their young daughter sat in their grocery cart.

So there we have it. 

There is our society,

That says that I am 

advanced enough to be assaulted

but not advanced enough to be listened to.