If the world said go right, she’d go left at every turn.

If they said children should be seen, not heard,

she’d do her best impression of a buffalo herd.

If they said be quiet, meek and mild,

she went loud, intense and wild.

If they said be like we believe you to be, who you should be, who we wish to see,

she would NOT do that, most definitely and most defiantly.

If they said girls are pretty, like pink and don’t climb trees,

she would do her very best to climb and swing like a chimpanzee.

If they said give up, give in, admit you’ve lost,

she would dig in, hold tighter, try harder, no matter the cost.

If they said to be cool is to be cruel,

she would gladly be the unpopular girl at school.

If they said be like us and you can fit in,

she takes her spot on the outside, looking in.

If they said don’t smoke, don’t drink and this is how you should think,

she would smoke, she would drink and she would disregard what they told her to think.

She was a rebel without pause,

a caring heart on a journey, like Dorothy and Oz.

She didn’t want to fit in, she didn’t want to comply;

to deny her true nature, to live out a lie.

She didn’t wish to be shackled and bound,

and so by herself, with her guides, her own way

she found.

A Rebel without pause, true to her nature, true to the cause;

the ongoing evolution of the self, not subjugation to society’s laws.