Women's Work

We grew up

with paper cups,

promises leaking out the sides from too much sun.

Then mom cried

when we got the carpet wet

becuase a woman’s work is never done.

Daughters cry back,

said we were sorry

as daddies scoop us up,

kiss our soft forehead and say:

It’s okay little girl.

I love you.

You’re perfect.

A girls’ peace of mind leaves the day her fist learns to fit down her throat

to purge away the parts that make her a woman.

It becomes a woman’s work

to find her reflection in broken mirror depictions of what a woman should be,

what they see

while we,

struggle.

It’s women’s work

to defend our choices turned black and blue,

saving our lives at the price of a person

by choice.

It’s work!

Pretending everything’s okay when he asks

because it’s uncomfortable to cry in the arms

of a man that is not

a father.

Our grown bodies

tied to a tide of frustration

that waves red twelve times in a year that we count in seconds,

waiting for the moment that someone might not be afraid of this cycle…

might think…

it’s beautiful.

Might not think it’s strange that a woman can bleed for five days and live to become

a mother.

No longer a slave

to her ambition

because a mother’s work is never done,

and a woman’s just a girl

that believed she had the power to make a choice.

She

will be praised for her sacrifices and shunned for her success until she is broken.

She

will destroy her self-esteem and pick it up with strong arms that project from his body.

She

will replace the woman with more girls inside her belly.

That’s a woman’s work:

To deny the struggle of sisters and daughters, mothers and women.

To chain the choice and be anything other than

woman.

To teach young girls to believe in their dreams

then clip those white wings with sharp scissors.

She

is now part of this world.

So we pray

and we pray

that she

will some day

be better

than women’s work.

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