We Are Women

we are women

in a class all our own 

we transformed from little girls

with blood and guts 

we fought

we kicked and screamed our way to the top

we learned our place at the table

and then we earned the space we took up

we wrote our way out

educated by life, 

in lessons on etiquette and service

on grammar and punctuation

giving explanation owed to no one

commandeering our stories 

the subject of our own lives

we describe, we act out, create tension,

interject, and modify

we are complex and independent, 

we stand in apposition to each other

complementing our differences, 

depending on them

we are not a participle

we predicate our voice,

not in relation to or to hyphen,

an article to an antecedent  

direct, 

slashing those in question

this was not a mad dash, or a mood swing

we are not a segmented clause,

we are the whole damned thing

there is nothing semi

about anything we are doing

we are women, period.

no ellip sis

take your time to define

how you feel inside

but the only thing about women

put in quotation marks

are the words we use

from which you derive

strength, order, and the

connection to the divine.