An exercise in poetic structures where a list of words are repeated in different arrangements in each verse of the poem. This was a challenging one.

---

⚸

Woman

09/25/2023

What does it mean to be a woman?
One who picks up her pieces and dresses her wounds?
Because the chips and cracks stifle her value.
Granules topple down curves
And she forgets her power
And allows herself to settle.
Our mothers and grandmothers settle
So our daughters know what it is to be a woman
And wield the silent power
That has for eons resulted in wounds
But now allows us to love our curves
And know our infinite value.
Well all have innate value
But when the strife is able to settle
And the perception curves
Long has the generous woman
Given her all, despite accruing wounds
That exhaust her personal power.
But how do you define power?
How can we assign people a value?
Can we buy peace with gold-plated wounds?
Why is the minimum enough to settle?
To quantify the wealth of being a woman
Has been to vilify her for loving her curves.
For men, the utility apparent is curves
And they view sex as our ultimate power
And thus diminish the woman
Reduced to what society deems as value.
Collecting debts she can never settle
That become salt stinging the wounds.
When generational trauma inflicts seeping wounds
That require traversing the Earth’s hills and curves
To find valleys to settle.
With determination, we recognize our rising power
And unlimitedly own our value.
That is the divinity of being a woman.
Gritting our teeth through the pain of wounds that prove our power.
We are more than our curves, for pleasure is not the paramount value.
As a woman in this shifting paradigm, never again will I settle.

⚸