A quick search reveals that
Janet and Condoleezza never married
and never had children.
So I traded their blazers for aprons.
This choice, my choice, is conscious.
My womb was built for this job:
raising healers, creatives, and lovers.
Raised by Murphy Brown and Oprah,
you told me I have to choose.
So I choose them, all three of them.
Even my daughter,
though she will mock my apron
and question my intellect
Until she meets your world and sees
how they made us “choose”:
children or achievement
marriage or success
dependence or freedom.
Convincing us to forget
we were not born
with all of it
at the start.