Rebecca Guard

“The One Who Talked" They say I talk too much — im too loud, too quick, too rough. Told me to hush, to sit, to shrink, but I was built to push, not think small, let them talk at all or blink. They labeled me “extra,” called me “a case,” Neuroed ADHD — like I needed a brace. As my mind don’t stall, it runs full cue, racing past rules they never thought through. I talk too much? Damn right, I do. ‘Cause the world don’t change from the quieted few. I flipped that flaw into policy gold, spoke for the silenced, the cast-out,I am quite litrally that bold. You told me I was crazy in psycohosis? Boys that was my fuel. Your rules .gov? I studied. Your silence? I schooled. Told me to sit — as I stood on the chair. Said I was cocky — I didn’t see you there why would I care. I was loud 'cause I had to be. Carried heat like a courtroom plea. I wasn’t built for a dainty seat — I was carved from the truth of "like unto fine brass, as if they burned in a furnace" as untame...

If you don’t know your own strength — then how the hell am I supposed to carve out time to teach it to you? Every single child that lands on my desk, fresh outta high school, without the spine to critically think or question — I’m looking straight at you, Peggy Sue. Yes, you. Sitting under your late husband’s mantle clock, wearing a ring from a man you never married, painting empathy onto beige walls that never raised a voice. Where are the men? Where are the builders? These women out here are raising fresh-scented, screen-scrolled, softened mules — legs hairless, hands clean, souls nowhere near the grit of the ground. No callouses. No timber in their tone. Just beard-filtered boys playing Dungeons & Dragons in dungeons they built in their mother's basements. And I’m out here — Sitting still. Scent on the wind. Waiting. Waiting for the rugged ones. The ones with resolve in their step and thunder in their decisions. For the de-masculated to resurrect and remind me what it ...