by Kelly Pelton (written 28 Jan 2021)

How mightily you protest the restriction of your freedom
in an age of uncertainty, of misinformation,
lamenting the unintended consequences of leaders
within our communities, counties, states, and our nation,

especially the most restrictive governors and mayors
who themselves are exempt from their stringent regulations
which limit their citizens's work, play, and worship options;
you decry the hypocrisy of their legal evasions.

I've endured a lifetime of church leader hypocrisy,
restricting women by the strictest interpretation,
holding themselves above the law or in the spirit of it
in a peculiar form of male gender veneration.

Now you know what it feels like to have your freedom stolen
by authorities who claim you're limited for your own good,
indifferent to your suffering that they have legislated
in a callous failure to recognize your full personhood.