The Used To Be Possible Poem by Lonnie Hicks

I carefully explained to him that women
don't fall in love-
that is a luxury for teens.
The twenties are for fun
but after that it is serious business
to find a mate.

When you are a woman among boys
your vision changes;
fun are toys to be put away
which guys never leave
but us girls feel more responsibilty,
feel more,
have more at stake;
we are the ones who get pregnant
have the babies
balance the budgets
have a dream of the future
and the boy-men
only dream of womanizing
and giggling about it to their
boy friends.

We have more at stake;
love after thirty
is far more serious;

and second place

to the long term needs
of a child and a homestead
and if that is not to be
we have a career to think of
with a man
or man-free.

This mind-set is alien
to the man-child
who understandably
can't afford romance
or marriage
who retreats to his video games;
girl-chasing, bar-drinking and in-ward things.

So what is a girl to conclude;
one on one, or solitude,
adoption; or man-child on the week-end
for one's needs?

Well, that is the state of things;
things reduced to the affordable,
the minimum, and the possible.


We girls are the barometers
of what is going on in society
and the one's first
asked to make the sacrifice
to What Is
and to forego
the Used To Be Possible.