Life Marathons......

I hear , running marathons, is getting popular these days....

As International Womens' Day draws near, I just wondered why ....

She now runs the
Marathon of Life,
hurt
but focused,
all by herself.

Life
has clearly been
a very different ball game.

Brittle
as a ping pong ball,
she spun
wildly across the green table
as she believed
first one,
and then another,
tolerating devious shots,
till she once fell,
crushed into pieces
under some one's
branded uncaring footwear.

Was she
a shuttlecock,
sometimes shot across
and sometimes
evilly dropped
as she clutched
on to the net;
and sometimes
declared "fast"
and relegated to trash,
in favour
of a spiffy new
fair and lovely
more obedient one?

Or was she
a foot ball,
kicked around
at will
on some one's whistled  instruction,
prevented
from reaching her goals,
by so called "keepers",
who kicked her right back
into the chaos
that was her life ?

Possibly a tennis ball.
As they first practiced
banging her head
against the wall,
again and again;
then on a larger stage,
whacked her
back-handed and fore-handed,
and sometimes
even powerfully
tossed her out.

And again and again,
she looks
high up
at someone sitting there
on the big chair,
who sagaciously nods
at her,
gestures to her,
and announces the
Life mantra,
that really,
doesn't seem to work.

Love-All ?

Start ?

Really ?