Walls

Life’s a Vacation | Lily Kolakowski | collage creative

Walls by Maya Tarnoff

It feels wrong to me 

that I can’t think of any walls 

that I’ve faced because I’m a girl,

barriers I’ve had to break down.

Am I just young, innocent, naive? Lucky? 

Or have these assumptions become so normalized 

that I don’t consider it out of the ordinary?

If I think hard enough,

I can find some times when I felt like being a girl

made it harder to breathe. 

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My younger sister has always seemed like the more “feminine version”

that I should strive to be.

Some things that I’m supposed to like, shopping for example,

are an endless source of frustration. 

Sometimes it makes me feel weird that I don’t love shopping

or feel the need to wear makeup every day - 

Like something inside of me needs to be fixed. 

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“We’re going to the temple. Hurry up and find something nice to wear,”

my mom yells down the stairs. 

She obviously means something modest, and preferably a dress. 

Part of me wonders, 

what would happen if I didn’t wear a dress to Temple?

My Jewish identity is something I take pride in, 

but it also boxes me in as 

“The Perfect Jewish Daughter.”

I always have to look modest, 

and be polite, 

and look beautiful, 

as if that really affects how good of a Jew I am. 

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Maybe if I were actually 

just Jewish 

instead of being a Perfect Jewish Daughter, 

and if I were just someone who hates shopping

but loves when people shop for her,

instead of being the “abnormal daughter,”

I would be able to breathe.