Never believe a man can change a woman!

“I have no power to change you or explain your ways Never believe a man can change a woman Those men are pretenders who think that they created woman from one of their ribs Woman does not emerge from a man’s rib’s, not ever, it’s he who emerges from her womb like a fish rising from depths of water and like streams that branch away from a river It’s he who circles the sun of her eyes and imagines he is fixed in place I have no power to tame you or domesticate you or mitigate your first instincts This task is impossible I’ve tested my intelligence on you also my dumbness Nothing worked with you, neither guidance nor temptation Stay primitive as you are I have no power to break your habits for thirty years you have been like this for three hundred years a storm trapping in a bottle a body by nature sensing the scent of a man assaults it by nature triumphs over it by nature Never believe what a man says about himself that he is the one who makes the poems and makes the children It is the woman who writes the poems and the man who signs his name to them It is the woman who bears the children and the man who signs at the maternity hospital that he is the father I have no power to change your nature my books are of no use to you and my convictions do not convince you nor does my fatherly council do you any good you are the queen of anarchy, of madness, of belonging to no one Stay that way You are the tree of femininity that grows in the dark needs no sun or water you the sea princess who has loved all men and loved no one slept with all men … and slept with no one you are the Bedouin woman who went with all the tribes and returned a virgin Stay that way.” —I Have No Power, Nizar Qabbani