The Choice of Motherhood

Alternative Title: ‘Medical Termination of Pregnancy (Amendment) Bill, 2020’
By: Vasundhara Singh
Picture Source: Pinterest

[TRIGGER WARNING: Unplanned pregnancy, abortion]

Week seventeenth

I am any woman 

The law assures

My damp conscience.

Week sixteenth 

I am any woman 

Without a partner 

Inside a doctor’s clinic.

Week fifteenth 

I am any woman 

With a harmless craving 

For pickled onions.

Week fourteenth 

I am any woman 

Holding a rose 

To a slight bulge.

Week thirteenth 

I am any woman 

Hopeless and numb

To the whispers on the street.

Week twelfth 

I am any woman 

Hardly baked and yet 

Resisting the urge to explode. 

Week eleventh 

I am any woman 

Standing in front of a 

Clinic with shortened breath.

Week tenth 

I am any woman 

Holding invisible evidence 

In the depth of my gut.

Week ninth

I am any woman 

Searching for a way home 

While another builds itself. 

Week eight 

I am any woman 

Guided by a light 

To the shore of choice.

Week seventh 

I am any woman 

Here yet away 

In a land of compromise.

Week sixth 

I am any woman 

Abortion isn’t murder

I read online. 

Week fifth 

I am any woman 

Plundered and revolted 

Mistaken as a fallacy. 

Week fourth 

I am any woman 

Under the illusion

Of unavoidable motherhood.

Week third 

I am any woman 

Sobbing on a balcony 

For a father that never was.

Week second 

I am any woman 

Tired and distant 

Waiting for another way out. 

Week first

I am any woman 

I feel for the first time

A want for mercy.

Week seventeenth

Safe and stitched up 

Under the bright hospital lights. 

A future beckons 

Of wanted happenings. 

Of laws 

For women becoming mothers

On their own accord.

Week eighteenth 

                            I am any woman 

                                                        On my way home.

For more such poems, check out The Word.