Difficult Daughter | Danielle Higdon - Poetry Contest 3rd Place Winner - Summer 2025

Of all the labels

they’ve assigned to me,

my favorite by far is

“difficult daughter”—

because it comes with

a built-in sisterhood.

(Such a fierce and sacred circle

to be held in.)

We cruise through life

with the droptop down

wild hair riding waves in the wind.

Our middle fingers like

match sticks,

one strike away from

lighting up the night sky.

We drink rum from the bottle

and laugh when it burns on the way down

because grown men say

it puts hair on your chest,

but we pour it like gasoline

on our bonfire tongues.

We dig our heels in

no matter the ground

when ego-trippers do their best

to back us into corners.

Always ready to serve as

a stick in the mud,

to fight for ourselves—but also for

the good girls

too afraid to get their feet dirty.

And we roll our eyes

when people pleasers place expectations

onto our shoulders that have been

weighed down from the start.

Light up another cigarette.

Return mail to sender.

Say a prayer for the bitter housewives

watching us with wanting eyes

from the confines of their

white picket prisons.

I will not be converted.

Damn right,

I’m a card-carrying member of the

difficult daughters club.

We spat in our palms and shook on it.

There’s no going back.

If my sisters need me,

I’ll take another swig and

crack my knuckles.

Sneak out of the house.

Break curfew.

Apply my eyeliner heavy and

black as soot.

I’d rather be difficult than

wide-eyed and gullible,

watching the world from a

pretty, postcard penitentiary—

convinced that what’s difficult

will never find its way

to me.

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Danielle Higdon is a writer, marketer, and wanderer of the mind. Originally from Newfoundland, she traded saltwater joys for sweeping canola fields, and now lives in Edmonton, AB with her wife and male tabby cat, JamJam.