Burden (poem)

BURDEN

I am not a modern-day woman.
I am diminishing beneath the pressure.
I am a blasphemer and heretic
among the religious
feminists--

I have tried woman-worship
I have practiced the sacraments of:

exhaustion and. arrogance.
self-sufficiency, and
independence.

I am concluding: I am still just
as
empty. and I am aching. even
more.

this world
was never meant
to be.

our
burden.