The Many Predicaments of a Single Woman – A Poem by Rachana

She walks as a liberal icon among people
who don’t realize their thoughts
are their barbed wires.

She’ll march the streets for the disenfranchised,
and maybe for those born with ugly faces,
but not for them who have the talent for picking the wrong men.

What about her?
She puts on a self-assuring act like she has a plan,
like she’s yet to pick a man on her own terms.

Her weapon?
The dizzying high of being hopelessly free,
it shows as glad throbbing in her eyes.

She is the only one for her child.
And she knows that all too well, because
he lifts her sense of self in the mirror.

When she walks into any room, she’s a muse,
a field of daisies flung open in full bloom,
while still delicate as a single stem.

One pull from someone else’s pen in the bar bathroom
will make her dangerous enough to burn cities down.
Just as suddenly, she wonders if she’s being judged.

You still want to know what’s difficult about
the ambivalence of living a single woman’s life?
Her predicaments can both confuse and console.

Well, here’s the thing.
She is me.
And I am tired of pretending.

Do I show restraint
or live recklessly?
Should I have to pick between career and family?

Do I embrace ambition
or skydive just to ghost the grind?
Do I live with purpose
or shop irrationally at 2 am?

Do I tighten my lips around foods
or seek refuge in them?
Should I take him back or seek new men?

Will I be judged if I show solidarity to a man,
yet watch female love scenes
all night in bed?

Will I turn into my mother if I clean up
these leftovers and clothes I chose not to wear last night?
They’re destroying my inner peace.

How’s one to welcome daybreak with whispers of
laughter and spend all this love
that’s turning piles of passion into cinders in my heart?

The screen in my palm parades its possibilities.
As a woman, I have the right to choose.
Swipe left, swipe right,
or power the damn thing off.

All this love, all this time,
finally, fiercely, only mine.