Constraints - Week 57 of my weekly poem for The Independent online newspaper.

Sometimes we choose our constraints - I choose my animals and owls, which means I can't go away anywhere unless I can get critter-care. But there are some people, women in particular, who have no choice but to endure what I consider to be constraints born of some kind of insanity, such as those in Afghanistan, where the Taliban now prohibit women from speaking outside the home in addition to covering themselves from head to toe.

[@elizabethgode1763]

Thank you so much Frieda❤🙏 I also want to thank you for George, one of the most beautiful, brilliant, funny memoirs I have ever read!!!! I read it 3 times, I love it so so much and I recommend it to everyone I know!!!! You are truly the best!!!!❤❤❤❤🙏🙏🙏🙏❤❤❤❤

[@aurorastorm9842]

Freedom is worth fighting for and so is the speech that protects it. If we cannot speak freely , then all is lost.

[@Angels_Are_Real]

I love the fire in you in this poem. May your fires forever burn bright. 🔥 ❤

[@0123hellooooo]

[@joanl3115]

Your last stanza resounds here in the US. We women want control over our bodies. Thank you for your heartfelt words 💐

[@friedahughes3115]

That last stanza was actually thinking of you!!!

[@joanl3115]

@@friedahughes3115 Your mother would be so proud ❣️

[@8angst8]

Sorry, Joan, but there's a big difference in, say, an abortion at 6 weeks and one at 6/7/9 months. I was once a Democrat, and I used to support abortion----but you need to actually THINK about what abortion is. Think about it. It's horrible. So, yeah, I think there should be some cut-off point for being allowed to kill your baby. I don't think 6 weeks or 12 weeks (3 months) is unreasonable. After that: Have it and give it up for adoption.

[@joanl3115]

@@8angst8 I know someone who was raped. And both of my kids are adopted.

[@Iamfromthetimebefore]

A new dark age approaches, and all we can do is watch, and be careful what we say, and who can hear.

[@Angels_Are_Real]

I love you. 💕 🪽

[@yonathanasefaw9001]

Living up to Ted Hughes!

[@8angst8]

What does that mean exactly? I know Hughes's writing a little bit, and he was quite aware of various cultures. Do you really think that Afghan women being suddenly transported into Western culture would be a good idea?

[@stevenaaus]

Really F.. Can't you see the sickness in our 'egalitarian' society you're championing, where we no longer have freedom of speech? What I loved about Sivvy's novel was its brutal, truthful, but sympathetic take-down of all the lies and hypocrisies in *our* privileged, sheltered lives. She sadly, found nothing in her young life to replace this void with though.

[@8angst8]

Are you seriously saying that we in the West "no longer have freedom of speech"? You must be kidding----or else have no sense of reality. You/we have every "freedom of speech," even to the point of constantly posting ridiculousness in global public forums---the ultimate in "freedom of speech." p.s. Where do you get off calling Sylvia Plath "Sivvy"?