The silent women,
go in and out of our lives
secretly suffering--
seeing their doctors
or not
taking the endless series of variously effective prescription medicines
or not
being hospitalized
or not
Remembered by their families for generations?
More likely their lives are covered up and silenced
because they do not fit the family myth
of easy functionality and unbridled superiority.
After all, they did not fit in--did not socialize--
or if they did,
they were too irritated
and out of control
of their own tumultuous emotions
to be able to restrain their anger
at a world
where fate
dealt them the short straw
of mental illness.
