Seems I’m really on a poetry kick lately. Oh, well, it doesn’t take as long to read, right? Even thought it often isn’t any quicker to write. Tonight’s poem is for every trophy wife…well, not every. Women like Melania Trump, who go into being a trophy wife on purpose, do not fit this poem. One can feel sympathy for them if they feel all they have to offer is their own body in sacrifice to a rich man, but…this poem is about a group of women that is probably larger than anyone realizes. Those who are trophy wives without intending to be. Those who wake up one day and find they are no longer any good to the man who swore to “love them forever”…because they no longer inspire envy in other men. If you are one of those women, just realizing you were a trophy wife without your consent, this poem is for you…and me…

TROPHY

 The trophy head adorns his wall,
Antlers nearly reaching to the ceiling.
You laugh.
“Look at that” you say.
“He needs to prove he’s a man.”

 Your trophy is not on your wall;
It’s on your arm.
You hold tight to the waist
As you work the room.
Smiles and knowing leers
Prove to you you’re a man.

 You did not kill your trophy,
Slash off the head and mount it.
Your weapon was not a gun.
Your weapon was lies.
“I love you”, you say. “I need you.
You are everything to me.”

 One day you walk into a room
Trophy on your arm.
There are no smiles,
No knowing winks,
No leers.
Your trophy is not preserved
And will get old.

 When that day comes,
When I no longer turn heads,
You cast me off.
Discarded in the rubbish pile of life.

 The trophy on his wall
Will be valued much longer
Than the trophy on your arm.