THE MELANCHOLY LIFE OF WOMAN

When first she learns she learns
That she is not a boy,
And sooner or later
It is borne in upon her
That she is a girl.

She is sooner or later taught
That this has excruciating
Advantages and excruciating
Disadvantages and
That she must fight.

She more or less understands
That the greatest of these
Is submission, and sooner or later
She submits more or less.

She uses with patience and prurience
The excrutiating alternatives.
She is afraid and wants
To become a woman and she becomes
A woman and she is afraid
Of being a woman.

She more or less chooses, but more
Often than not, is chosen, by one
Or by several men, who become
Her protectors, destroyers, husbands,
And lovers, who fulfil for better or worse
The degrees of whatever goes on
Between woman and man.

Sometimes her body opens
And lets out the child.
Often her body is wracked
With unavoidable pain.
But more often than not
It is wracked with avoidable pain.

Rarely or often or never or always
A man
Enters her body
For hundreds of motives
Than which hers are all different,
Except love
Which she more or less seeks
And more or less finds.

Then when she has suffered enough,
And bled and not bled,
And birthed or aborted and cried
Or not cried, from bridal’s gown
To widow’s weeds she learns -When she is tired she learns
That she is old.

All of it sooner or later
Over too soon or over
Too late, and she learns
To submit to the life
That an old women more or less lives.
In a world that despises old women
She learns to submit
To a more or less life
That she never deserved,
Or else she dies young.

by: Angelfire.com