The Treaty

The Treaty

When childhood is over,

When the parents push you out,

Even for the world of work,

Or higher education,

A treaty is made with the world

That says you belong to you,

Unless you elect to stay

Close to the family.

Major decisions belong to you

As do mistakes and goofs

And all matter of wrongs

Against the others who live

In the town.

There are those who believe

You owe your government

Whatever the government says you owe.

If you get pregnant

The government's say you owe

The product of that pregnancy

For paying taxes

Service to society

As a soldier in war.

Only women no longer

Belong to themselves ever.

If a man wants to use

A woman's body 

the precedent has been set in stone.

Women can be forced to have babies.

Which means men can legally force

Women to have sex.

Never mind anti-rape laws,

Kidnapping laws,

Raped and pregnant

The man owns the woman's body.

It's his treaty with society.

The baby and all children from his woman

Belong to him.

This includes the girls he brings

Into the world.

Forget their mothers.

They have no freedom for anything.

So says thirty states

And the Supreme Court.

The men voted.

They own the law.

They own the women.

Even the women they convince

To be their slaves to their law

I thought we rid ourselves of slavery.

I thought people belonged to themselves.

I guess I don't and the women I've known 

Don't own themselves.

That is so, so wrong.

Barry G. Wick