a poem by Susan Arcady Barich 2010
“Strong woman.”
It’s usually an excuse for the way they treat us.
“Oh, he did that, because you’re a strong woman.”
Or
“Well, but you ARE a strong woman.”
Here’s the deal.
Strong women are not “strong” at all.
Not mighty
not powerful
not able to make things happen.
We simply know who we are.
That’s all.
We don’t suffer fools,
because we’ve suffered a lot worse.
We know what we want,
what we expect,
what we will tolerate,
what we choose to tolerate.
We’re not strong.
We suffer just like the fools.
We are sensitive
and easily hurt.
But we refuse to be victims.
We refuse to lay our grief
at someone else’s door step.
We only became strong
by accepting.
We accept what is.
We don’t blame others.
And we emerge
larger than we were before.
They see that as strong.
We see that as
we had no other choice.
