To All the Women I’ve Never Had a Chance to Know

For all the inventions that might have made my life better, brighter, or easier but were never made because a woman never got the chance, this is my lament.

For all the female comedians I never got to laugh at, all the women authors I’ve never had the chance to read, who were never taught in school, whose voices were deemed too this or not enough that, for all the art I’ve never had the chance to stand in front of in awe, this is a song of mourning.

For Phillis Wheatley, Sybil Ludington, Rosalind Franklin. For Claudette Colvin, Katherine Johnson and all the women whose accomplishments I never learned in history class, in science class, in English class, whose names have been buried in the footnotes, this is my keen.

For all the women never given a chance. For all the women I never got the chance to know or study…