1.
Little girls receive a kitchen play set
for their fifth birthday
whether they are interested or not.
They will be taught to eulogize the real kitchen,
waiting for their turn in it
until their backbone has committed it to memory
and they forget they never
liked cooking in the first place

2.
Mothers don’t eat desserts.
They sip their coffee from a measuring glass,
trying to convince their yearning stomachs
they are too full for the chocolate cake
the men and children are licking from their fingers
Because their husbands’ round bellies
don’t make room for them anymore
Because they have never felt entitled
to a full stomach

3.
You should never ask certain things, like
“Why do only the girls clean up?”
No one has an answer
and they will be left searching for it
in the coffee-stained cups and soapsuds,
finally understanding why
they have always felt empty inside

4.
Little girls should be called “cute,”
not “loud” or “curious,”
not “boyish,”
because it is a boy’s job
to be called those things
and girls in pink dresses are
everybody’s dream
of what is right with the world

5.
Being a woman is synonymous
with being secondhand,
a flower in men’s coats
for them to look at only when they want to
You’ll need to speak twice as loud,
work twice as hard,
or you never even existed
in the first place