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.

 

 

– 0 –

 

About The Article Author:

Hi, I’m Rachana. Its been my dream for years to do something to consciously create a better future where every one of us is excited about our own potential. My challenge to everyone is that they aspire for their personal best and leave a legacy of their work through their contributions to mankind.

One more thing. In December of 2044, I hope to win the Nobel.

Will you join me on this journey of growth and transformation?
Namasté.

Poetry

Dear Refugee, My Life Must Go On.. – A Poem By Rachana

Dear Refugee, My Life Must Go On.. – A Poem By Rachana

- 0 -   The translated Telugu version: ప్రియ శరణార్థీ! నా జీవితం ఇలా నడవనీ.. This poem appeared originally in The Saaranga Magazine HERE.    -   It's not too unthinkable,sipping licorice tea in my cardigan,And day dreaming of a life of civil liberties....

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Momentous: A Poem On The Value Of Time

Momentous: A Poem On The Value Of Time

-   It's not the lack of money that makes me cry like my heart is about to burst.You want to know what it is?   It's something you have or don't more than I do, because there's no straight finish line here.It ticks away silently mocking our indignant ways...

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Perceiving My Anthropology

Perceiving My Anthropology

-   I don't know what moves him.I remember the day he came back home tohide his red eyes behind that newspaperafter he lit his mother's pyre.This is the man, the brunt of all my emotions,whose lifetime fits in this poem.   It's mostly the appalling nature of...

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To My Estranged One

To My Estranged One

-   Ok, I admit; I still have that shameful longingness.When you gathered everything else up and left me to myself, And, when the war of words ended, It was clear that the love between us had begun to show cracks.It would never happen to me, was the conviction I...

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Yours Singularly – A Love Poem By Rachana

Yours Singularly – A Love Poem By Rachana

Want to listen to me read it? -   Always close by my side, he mocks me.Calling the lack of endearment around me,self-inflicted.Late in the afternoon, at work,“This team of people around you just need you tobreak their bread”, he mulls. At the bar,he demands to...

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Still Standing, Still Standing..

Still Standing, Still Standing..

-   The below is a first person account of a village tree who lost the friendship of a small boy to the big charm of the city..    -   At day break, I wait for your shrill cries of laughter to pierce my ears..I ponder while I drink the primary cocktail,a...

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Dear Sons: Full Disclosure

Dear Sons: Full Disclosure

Act I: The Paradox   I only have one job.It is to keep you alive. Ironically,I have also raised you in a wayto take care of yourselfin case I’m not there anymore. There, I said it. It’s going to be a lifefull of paradoxes.The burdenof a deadline,and the tyranny...

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Now – A Poem on Time

Now – A Poem on Time

-   Of all the things I have and can desire to have, my time on this earth, and the time my kids will have of mine is finite. I am mindful of that. What I am also painfully mindful is that I do not choose well how I spend it. As an adult, time and the freedom to...

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Tea Rings – A Poem by Rachana

Tea Rings – A Poem by Rachana

Listen To The Article:-   There is the love of mother that needs no senses to feel its expression.And, that’s where I begin my journey of this life with you. In that vintage picture, I think of how you became a woman coming of age.Wounds of the uprooting I...

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Temples in Our Hearts – A Poem by Rachana

Temples in Our Hearts – A Poem by Rachana

-   While others make smoldering burial grounds in memory,those who have never made promises to make us laughbuild their own temples in our hearts. Stories that don’t need our mother’s tongue at all,are these secret wishes that transcend cultures and...

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