princess treatment.

“You deserve princess treatment.”

Do I?

I barely know how to advocate for myself. I take a lot of what is handed to me. I’m not sure that I have a fighting gene inside of my body. Maybe that’s why I’ve been taking all of this pain and torment in my life like a champ. 

I’m really a mass of soft and gooey stuff. I can’t take too much of a pounding. Talk shit, get hit. I remember my homegirl checking me for “coming off like I wanted to fight everybody.” I realize now that I used fake aggression as a defense mechanism. You can’t fuck with someone who appears ‘unfuckwittable.’ The fake thug veneer wore off years ago. If you hit me, I run away and go cry. 

I just want to cry while in the arms of someone. The person who scolded me for thinking that I didn’t deserve that good-good love and affection sadly didn’t get that far with me. I did feel safe around him. 

Until I couldn’t. 

I’m really a sweetheart. I’m as cul-de-sac, HOA as they come. I fold like church pamphlets. I’ve been hit with a hailstorm of fire and brimstone and still think that I’m not built for war. Life should’ve been took me out. I woke up yesterday in gratitude for God advocating for me when I couldn’t speak up for myself. God made the calls that I couldn’t. God aligns the stars that my eyes, too flooded with tears, couldn’t see. God cleared the pathways that my feet, heavy with guilt and shame, couldn’t traverse. And carried me. I’m an example of provision and miracle. 

I’m the strong soldier that God gave those toughest battles to. 

I still want to feel safe enough to say that I can be weak. Early-20th-century-Disney princess-weak. “Damn, I really want to save this girl” weak. 

In reality, I don’t. I just want to feel like I can honor my weakness in front of a man. I can truly fall apart. I’ve fallen apart at the hands of men for most of my life. One that’s kin to me feels like he can talk to me however he wants to because “I need to hear about myself.” I need to know that I’m this “failure” of a person who squandered her collegiate dreams away only to find herself working retail because she’s a “13 year-old in an adult’s body” who “can’t tell anyone about anything.” That I need to “eat” my failures. 

Some men feel so comfortable calling me weak, treating me as if I’m weak. I still remember the first man to call me a “bitch.” I still remember the first man who touched me when I didn’t ask to be. Disregarding my safety for their own ego. To prove that they are big and bad enough. That they are somebody. To themselves. Somebody to themselves. 

In college, I was a girl on her way to doing the thing she always wanted to do but I was so crippled by feelings of loneliness and sadness that all I wanted to do was crash and burn. But a man saved me from turning into dust. My Dad saw that I wasn’t okay. I never learned how to speak up for myself but my Dad could hear every thought and fear I had. He came and got me. 

I think that’s why I miss him so much. He treated me like his princess. He wanted to make sure I was safe. He got upset when I would put myself in situations where my personhood was in jeopardy. He cared about me. I knew that if something was wrong, I could go home. 

He set this standard that most haven’t kept. 

Yet, I know they’re out there. 

I know it when I get those texts asking me if I’m good. I know it when I get prodded to go outside and take a walk because I’m punishing myself inside these four walls of my bedroom and my damn mind. I know it when I get DMs reminding me that I’m seen and felt and heard. 

Those things keep me safe. 

My Dad wanted to name me ‘Princess.’ My Mom vetoed it. She did like a “tiara” and added a “c”. Maybe they knew I would be one of those 21st-century Disney princesses: strong, capable, determined and predestined to help save the world around her. 

And herself.