Old man, look at my life — I’m a lot like you were. — Neil Young
When I stepped offstage,
still warm with words,
still ringing with the music of the moment,
he met me by the exit — curious, kind, a little cautious.
“My wife loves your dangerous, old-woman stuff,”
he said.
“But what about this old man?
Does he not get a stanza or two?
It’s still a man’s world, isn’t it?”
I smiled, thinking, a mad, mad world indeed.
I write what I know —
the life I’ve lived
in this skin,
this gender,
this glorious, unraveling age.
And I don’t walk alone.
The Spirit of the She walks with me —
the poets, the mystics, the mothers of change,
whose quiet rebellions
built the path beneath my feet.
I walk it still,
in gratitude and wonder.
I’ve learned as much from men
as I have from women —
laughter, grit, assertiveness,
and the courage to begin again
even when staying wasn’t easy.
The first person who called me a goddess
was a man —
still does,
usually while I’m storming through the kitchen,
declaring a new life path
before the coffee’s even brewed.
I’ve raised men.
One from my body,
one in my heart
since he was barely out of diapers.
I’ve wept for their safety
in a world that both worships and wounds them.
One day,
my son stood tall and came out as himself —
knowing full well what he might lose.
And still,
he chose truth.
And once —
when the night was unkind
and I was too broken to run,
it was a man who saved me.
Not with a sword,
but with stillness.
No questions.
No shame.
Just the quiet strength
that said I was safe again.
So no —
my poems are not against men.
They’re written from the body I was given,
the truths I carry in my bones,
the stories I inherited in silence
and now dare to say aloud.
The final shape of me
has been etched by many hands —
some with knives,
some with mercy,
some holding doubt,
some holding space,
some carving beauty
that only love could leave behind.
And maybe that’s what the years have taught me —
this shape we take
is never made alone.
Every story that wounds or redeems us
belongs to all of us.
Love writes in many tongues
and every truth
deserves a voice.
The purpose of being alive
is not to divide the light,
but to see the whole spectrum
burning in every one of us.
To be fully human
is to recognize yourself in another,
to honor the mirror
even when it startles you awake.
The soul has no gender.
So here’s to you, my good friend—
this old man.
We are not opposites.
We belong to the same tune,
sung in different keys —
male, female,
divine, human,
spirit and skin.
Instruments of the one sweet song
that keeps rolling home.
