THESE AMBITION-KILLING MEN

At middle school and high school, years ago,
we all knew girls who were born to glow.
They truly had it all in sight:
beauty, brains, ambition, sparks of light.

Today they are coupled up or wed,
wholly emptied of their ambition.
They are without vision and without passion,
resigned to a life gone flat and dead.

They are many, these partners, no less.
These partners, killers of ambition.
They will lead you into a relation
where you will shine less and less.

They will do nothing to lift you above.
They will be of no help to you at all.
They will speak you words of love.
If you fall, they cannot raise you at all.

Some will offer you marriage.
Then they will work until your star has gone pale.
Over your eyes they will lay a dark veil.
Making of your marriage an obscure mirage.

Others will serve you cohabitation.
In their incapacity to honour you right,
they will offer you journeys and gilded jewels bright.
They will make of ignorance your station.

This is not how we knew you, dear ladies.
Find within you that flame, and let it blaze.
Let no one snuff you out.
You are a light that must spread out.

This is an invitation to awake;
To awake in order to pursue your dreams;
Your dreams, for which you loved to stay awake;
To stay awake and work so that they get no reprieve.

Avoid these ambition-killing partners!
And you, partners, give your partners your care.
You now make up a pair.
And you must grow together, with resolution.

Yes, behind every great man,
they say there is a great woman.
But behind every great lady,
do we often find a gentleman?

M. Z.