EQUAL, NOT THE SAME

The women tried, they ran and kicked,
that national soccer team,
but up against fifteen-year-olds
the lost, and so did a dream,
that thought could change all by itself
evolution’s age-old laws,
they hadn’t strength to match those boys
though they struggled tooth and claw.
And though I may now speak in vain:
You’ll find we’re equal, not the same.

The boyfriend tried to hold it back,
to be the man she claimed to want.
But things grew colder, day-by-day,
until she ran out on a quick jaunt.
He later found a strange number
lay present on her phone.
He followed her and found her loved
a thug fierce, and roughly-honed.
That white knight vanished in a rage,
he learned to be equal, but not the same.

The young marine she wished to fight
on the front line with her brothers,
no one doubted her courage or zeal,
they doubted something other.
A valiant try she made at camp,
but slowly met travails.
the soul could not undo the body,
the young marine, she failed.
We did not doubt that she was game,
she was an equal, but not the same.

The new father, he tried his best
to quiet his screaming son.
He loved the little guy to death,
but had never dealt with age one.
The boy he screamed ‘til mother came
and somehow the child soothed.
The father frowned and sighed aloud,
he’d yet to find his grove.
And as his wife and child played
he said, ‘I’m equal, but not the same.”