consequences

I think about how I look like my mother

When she was my age

And I think about the men

who fall at their feet for me to touch them

Did she feel this power?

with two children at 19?

Did she have to carry the weight of the expectations

and the consequences

on her hip?

Did she carry her child alone,

Reminding herself

of what she's been told, by the men who beg,

that she can break the earth she walks upon.