The Silent Women

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.