Join the Neopoet online poetry workshop and community to improve as a writer, meet fellow poets, and showcase your work. Sign up, submit your poetry, and get started.

Ah, the joys of being a woman, carrying her own weight

I've lived long enough
that everything I've ever hurt
has hurt me back,
and that's just my body talking.

I walked too many miles on stilettos,
ran too long with my back out of whack,
fell on black ice, once too often and been
hit from behind three times,
my vehicle worse for the wear and tear,
my extremities frost bitten for the art of undress.

Ah, the joys of being a woman, carrying her own weight
up and down the corporate ladder, trying to prove that she's indispensable,
bringing home the bacon and slipping on her fate.

Yes, I've carried heavy boxes, moved the living room around and around,
know how to use a hammer and a saw, and dug deep into the earth,
planted many kinds of flowers and trees but tell me, has one man ever
felt the unbalanced weight of bearing even one small child, stretching
you to your limit?

About This Poem

Last Few Words: Thanks for the inspiration, Fool...The. ~A

Editing Stage: Editing - rough draft

About the Author

Region, Country: Ohio, USA

Favorite Poets: Bokonon: “Let your life be the poem you write”. , I'm still writing.....

More from this author

Comments

P

pleiades

13 years 7 months ago

love, love, love it

love, love, love it

kept nodding my head as i read this, thinking
to myself, "yep, i can relate to that"
the matter-of-factness of your exposure is i think,
what makes this so good
have quite a dose of line envy a couple of times...

"my extremities frost bitten for the art of undress."
"bringing home the bacon and slipping on her fate".

no frills, no fuss, no whining...just telling
it like it is/ was for you...yet also a write
that will speak to the collective female

you're my hero A

wesley snow

wesley snow

13 years 7 months ago

Touche.

My niece just had a baby boy. I told her I know how small the opening is the kid allegedly came through and said I still don't believe it. Too outrageous. Muliebrity is still one of my favorite words though. I'd rather be manic depressive than pregnant. Just too damn difficult and scary.
As Jess said, this is a little different from what I usually read of yours and I like it a lot also. In fact all of your stuff is growing on me in leaps.
wesley

Nordic cloud

Nordic cloud

13 years 7 months ago

Great stuff Anna.

Great stuff Anna.
luvAnn.

P.S. Ignorant of giving birth to a child, must however be the most wonderful thing to have experienced in spite of the pain.

K

Kailashana2

13 years 7 months ago

It all depends, in this

It all depends, in this society with pain blocks, etc. women do not have to deal with the pain. Even if we're dealing with the bodily changes during the 9 months or so. Then add to that whether or not a woman is happy being pregnant, whether it was by incest, rape or an unprotected night of sex.

In the USA, it seems the legislatures are trying to grant a zygote *personhood*, giving more rights to it than the fullly grown, breathing, living woman. It's a perversion, if Americans really cared about human beings, then society were care for the living,: the quality of food, health care, education, medicine and *home*, a *living standard* that must be available to each and every person, regardless of race, colour, creed, or religion.

Nor would war be the easiest fastest alternative to the world's problems, sending thousands of young men in harm's way.

These extremes are symptomatic of a sick society, imo.

~A

Eduardo Cruz

Eduardo Cruz

13 years 7 months ago

Well,

The closes I've come was giving birth to a kidney stone, if that counts.
Well put Anna, none can say they have.
Oh the secrets of woman-hood,, only felt and hard to explain to a man.

Eddie

wesley snow

wesley snow

13 years 7 months ago

I have known several people...

... who have passed stones some of whom are mothers. I've been told the pain of the stone comes close to that of birth. Of course, the advantage to passing a stone is that one need not save for its education.
wesley

Eduardo Cruz

Eduardo Cruz

13 years 7 months ago

Wesley

Now that's some funny shit. I didn't look at it that way. LMFAO!!

Eddie

K

Kailashana2

13 years 7 months ago

Thanks again for reading and

Thanks again for reading and a very fond thank you for your sense of humor Wesley.

Edumacation, however, is pretty much not worth anything except paying back the banks that loaned the money. So many college graduates of so many fields working in *menial labor* jobs, if working at all.
Pink Floyd's words haunt.

"We don't need no education. We don't need no thought control. No dark sarcasm in the classroom. Teacher leave them kids alone. Hey! Teacher! Leave them ..."

I wonder.

~A