A boy turned 6 today

A boy turned 6 today

He walked into school and emerged

Fully grown and still a child

Bashful and brave

Poignant and powerful

Vulnerable and earnest

I am his mother

and I turned older still

counting my birthdays

no longer by my own

but by his

the day he emerged from my womb

everything changed

A boy turned 6 today

a boy who will grow

and change

and his voice will deepen

and his legs will be hairy

and he will smell

even worse than he already does

after playing outside.

A boy may want a girl

years later

He may go to a party

and drink out of a keg

and scream:

I AM THE KING

We raise him sometimes

as the center of 

our world

But I hope he knows

someday

when he's older

He is not the center of 

the world

A boy turned 6 today

Thousands of miles away

women who were once girls

told stories about a boy

who was once 6

who was the center 

of his parents' world

who maybe never learned

He was not the center of 

the world

Who thought the rules

applied to everyone

but him

And the voices and the stories of the girls

didn't matter

And he could rewrite his own history

with money, degrees, and good deeds

Who am I to judge?

As I rewrite my own.

Therefore I will not judge.

I will eat cake with the boy who turned 6 today.

God is the only judge.

But neither should the boy

who never learned to be a man

Be America's judge

A boy turned six today.

What kind of America will it be

when boys become men

and women become people