WOMEN

I love listening to stories
Stories of love, sacrifice, family, hardships, triumphs
 Tethered by womanhood
I have been curious about
 what makes the female experience differ from a man's? 
I have heard countless tales, real and fictional, and these stories have compelled me to speak
or forever hold my peace.
 
On a nippy winter morning,
as I sat listening to the story of Sita
(who I had always thought was a damsel who was rescued) and how she was a single mother
who went against the norm it
enthralled me to no end
knowing her to be 
the epitome of sacrifice and strength.
 
Panchali, the haughty princess
who made men fight war
to bring back her honor.
Oh! how she stood before those men
who had violated her
and made this proclamation 
instead of being silently weeping in a corner.
 
Stories of childbirth in sheds
in villages of Nepal
and how women die giving sons to their families,
how girls go to schools
when they're asked to stay back and work
"What will you do learning abc? 
You have to work in the same fields that you're working now"
The ability to say (albiet internally)
"No, fuck you, I will make my own destiny"
My sister dreaming of travelling the world, 
coming from a small city herself, she has always shown 
the thirst to understand the world greater than herself.
 
Women I've witnessed sacrificing hopes and dreams to fuel those of her children
and those ungrateful wretches
leaving her stranded when she needs them.
Insufferable men leaving their faithful wives to go the arms of another woman, 
fully aware that his wife is giving 100% to that marriage, 
going mad bit by bit
by the heartbreaking infidelity.
How easy it is for men to be unfaithful
and for women to suffer silently.
I've seen women
who cannot have children 
weeping in temple doors 
hoping for a miracle.
Then there is a young mother
who leaves her child in those temple stairs
aware of her sin
but hoping someone will take that baby
into a better life
than she can provide.

we've seen 
sad women
happy women
empowered women
selfish women
women who live for themselves
with the freedom of choosing one's path, 
something that isn't available to many like us
unfaithful women
women not liking their children
the greatness of women
the shades of women
destined to suffer, but 
 created a garden of her sorrows, flowering them one after another
refusing to be put down in a world
that does not see her as her own---
She has created a world 
of her broken hopes, dreams and triumphs
so silently
that you wouldn't know
it was being made.
 
This is what makes womanhood 
such a pillar of strength
and an emblem of despair.