This poem is in honor of my childhood hero, and perhaps the most important character in the entire Star Wars canon--Princess Leia. As a child, Princess Leia was my first hero and the first woman I remember seeing on TV and thinking "I want to be like her." I am twenty-four years old and I still want to be like her.

Dedicated to Carrie Fisher, with all the love and admiration in the world.

--

She was born on an asteroid.

A baby girl no bigger than the length of an arm

A real star child, you know.

Pink skin and hands smaller than a shuura

With a destiny so big it could ring the galaxy

Six times

In twelve parsecs.

She was a princess, too.

The jewel of Alderaan.

A real diplomat, filled to the brim

With her mother’s blood.

Pink in the cheeks with one hand

outstretched--the whole of the universe

Spilling from her child palm.

Living proof of her father’s choice.

The violence of great men is always a choice.

They don’t call her a war hero.

But that’s what she was--poised and dignified

Watching planets disintegrate into particles

With her chin tipped towards the stars.

Reaching out into the systems--

“Help me” she says, “You’re my only hope.”

And yet--

Who stands tall in the shadow of

The Empire?

Who raised the armies against

The First Order?

And collected the pieces of the galaxy

Like glass into her arms?

The mosaic of all that could be, and should, too.

She, a queen amongst men,

Who held fast

against the bleak entrails of her

Own father’s corruption.

Her brother’s insecurity.

Her husband’s inconstant yearnings.

Who is the mother of the universe?

Who is the movement of the force?

The menstrual bloom of time, and space?

The blossom of the feminine, the strong.

Her red heart melting as the cosmos shift

Inside her pink skin--

Another violent man making the wrong decisions.

But from that dust,

She rises.

And with her blood,

She binds.