I'm a girl kind of in the way that dandelions are weeds

technically true but not quite right

I'm a dandelion, but a dandelion in the way that children see them

as little pockets of sunshine sprouting from the earth

when I was little, my grandmother would sit with me outside while I ran around collecting as many as my grubby little hands could hold

and then she would teach me how to make flower crowns out of them

I never understood why kids told me that I had to pick something different when I said that dandelions were my favorite flowers

eventually I learned to say roses, or daises, or sunflowers instead

but secretly those defiant little flowers that grow wherever they want

that grow for themselves rather then the will of a gardener 

will always hold a special place in my heart

Thats all to say that I guess my issue is less in being a women

and more in the way that society perceives them

we have this mold for what a women is or isn't, and I don't feel like I quite fit into it

I feel women-adjacent:

women enough to embrace my femininity 

but not enough for the word to feel anything but foreign

she/they feels like a recognition of the fact that I don't quite fit into one category or another 

I'm not a flower or a weed 

and frankly I don't really care for labels-

a dandelion grows regardless of what you call it