Because we women too often look to everything and everyone else but ourselves…to find and define ourselves
Stop looking for her
In between the lines and
Squeezed behind the confines of
The words of others
She feels no need to hide her unfinished pages
Her book is still in progress and
Writing is a process so
She takes her sweet time
Stop looking for her
In a man’s lustful gaze
In his validation, in his temptation and
His inclination toward what’s on her outside
He can go sit down somewhere because trust
She’ll be just fine
And if chivalry don’t pull out her chair before he pulls out his or if
Chivalry don’t give her no goodnight kiss she’ll
Pull out her own chair and sit where she wants to sit
Chivalry died but she still sleeps at night and
Before she closes her weary eyes
God always tells her He loves her anyway
Stop looking for her
In her accolades or in her titles or
In her degrees
When the dust settles underground and
When she is no longer around, what does a piece of paper in a pretty frame really even mean?
In life, all that forms above ground will eventually cease
Only to return through the trees and
Through the breeze and the dirt but
How she gonna enjoy her stay if she’s too high on hierarchy to come back down to earth?
Stop looking for her
In other places other than
Where you should have looked already
Just because you think you’re not ready for
Who you may find
Dig deeper
Some extra help
Something like a search and rescue mission
but this one’s for your damn self
An Amber Alert, a missing person’s case
You better do something different before it’s too late
Dr. Kiara Shanay Lee 
