PATRIARCHY

Father’s daughter, husband’s bride.
The choice taken from her, and she accepts it–for now.

Passive, subservient, obedient is how she has learned to be.
But this is not really her, although she does not know it yet.

Husband found and courtship orchestrated, she is wed with, perhaps,
a skewed sense of what love is.

Love is submission and obedience,
it is not mutual respect or equality.

Time passes; days, months, years, and still matrimony does not feel like love.
More submission, more obedience must be the answer. But it is not.

Freedom is the answer. Not the answer that will heal the marriage,
but the answer that will heal herself.

Not heal so much as reveal her strength, hidden within.
Unveiling the person she has always been.

The rebellion in her heart–thought of as weakness or failing–is strength and truth.
Honest now, she breaks the bonds that have kept her from being herself.

Smiles are natural, her face shines, doubts diminish–mostly.
She is herself now–unmarried, unfettered, and free.

Published in the 2024 edition of The Bellwether Review literary magazine.