Tag Archives: rules to live by

In A Society of Women

17 Replies
2007

In A Society of Women

No patriarchal dominance rears its violent head.
Birth fluids and menses are the only lifeblood shed.
No lifted guns or measured gait. No uniform or boot
disturbs the regal silence of the calmness at our root.

Spontaneity rules the day. We follow no set path.
Not guided by testosterone, we do not extoll wrath.
The crack of no whip guides us. We can’t be led like sheep.
You cannot boss or bully us. We live by what we reap.

Your rules buzz around us like mosquitos in the brain,
centered around principals that we hold in disdain.
Dominance and power and unlimited riches
would not be an option in a world that’s run by bitches!

Prompt words today are crack, mosquito, spontaneity, patriarchal, root and moonlight.

 At Fourteen

There is a whole world out there and you’ll see it soon enough.
It is the world inside of you you’ll find especially rough.
Try to write about it, and try to tell the truth
about the things that happen that you find uncouth.

Write about what hurts you, and hurts that you have done–
all those shadows in you brought into the sun.
Ask those around you why they act in ways that might seem cruel
and try to live your own life by the golden rule.

Take chances and do not be cowed when you achieve less
than what you might have hoped for, and when you’re wrong, confess.
Don’t just do what your friends do. Don’t act before you think.
However strange the ones around you, try to find a link.

The world has enough meanness. Try not to add to it.
Try harder in environments where you seem not to fit.
People who are petty will cut you like a knife,
but the chances that you take will be what will make your life.

Other people’s rules pinch like a too-small shoe,
so don’t let other people dictate what you do.
Do not fear to step aside and go out on your own.
The fields that yield the sweetest crop are those that you have sown.

Post this advice up on your wall and read it now and then.
Use it as a means to reassess where you have been.
Then when you are older, and your life grows thin,
do what I am doing now. Consider it again.

 

In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “From You to You.” Write a letter to your 14-year-old self. Tomorrow, write a letter to yourself in 20 years.