Sometimes

by Hania Anwar

Sometimes

I wish I was born a

Man

in true Plath-ian fashion

to roam the desolate fields

at Dusky Dawn

without the gripping fear

of being stripped bare and

Torn

If I were a Man I wonder

would I fight half as much with my mother?

Would she chastise me for not wordlessly helping

around the house were I a Son and not a

daughter?

Would my father have turned away the childish outstretched hand

that reached towards his noisy busy factory

were I a Son and not a

daughter?

If I were a Man

would I have worried about unborn children

part of un-lived futures and the thousand ways I would

Fail them?

The only reason Rhett could say he didn’t

“Give a damn”

was because he was a Man

I was born with all the Damns in the world crammed into me

Until I began to

Choke