Rules of Femininity
by Michael 

There is something best told
Directly and with complete clarity
Of how the unspoken happens and unfolds
With greatest inadvertent transparency

That femininity has its own set of rules
That which they don't teach at school
But has left many feeling annihilated
Quite certain they've been spiritually violated

In frank observations given so breezy
She took her time to persuade me
In overburdened metaphors streaming
That keep too many little girls from dreaming

Still, she offered liberation from lazy thinking
As we sat there, socially engaged and drinking
In a sense, it was a painless sort of inoculation
As she whispered the pleasures of her preoccupation

It seems that while princesses were vanishing
Bold and vulgar princes needed banishing
And while it came off with attitude
When all was said, I held her comments with gratitude

For the tale that she had made her own
Though never borne silently nor alone
Offering a chance for those locked in towers
And that she quietly sought to empower

Those who are stuck in helplessness
Mirrored fractures of their circumstances
Mired in addictions and sexual obsession
And treated less as humans than possessions

Sometimes it is perfectly rational
To come off enraged and pathological
Circled around and out of possibility
Prisoners of the illusions thought reality

Too often, these are the rules of femininity
The closed in perceptions of intimacy
Off-kiltered but lived as the narrative
When life seems not to offer any comparative

As a father, this left me a little depressed
Although, her eloquence certainly impressed
Her words needed to be heard, though hard to hear
And these convinced to go beyond what things appear

(c) January 25, 2018  Michael Romani
All Rights Reserved