Lost Dreams, New Beginnings: A Women’s Day Poetry Tribute

She Never Was Weak—She Was Only Taught to Be.

Women have been told where they should be feminine, the weaker energy. What they should do and how they should live for centuries has been taught to her from the day she was identified as a woman born on Earth. In India alone, nearly 92% of women do unpaid domestic work. Women have been told where they should be, what to do, and how to live for centuries. Anyone breaking that is seen as a rebel. It’s still the same in many places. Blaming the few who trespass and using it to fetter others is not the right way. Safety is often the reason said to curb their desires. But why not take an oath to create a safer environment for our girls in our own country on this Women’s Day?

Leaving those things, let’s talk of these things later. Before that, we shall see women who break such fetters and create a world for themselves, beating all odds.

YES, women, today are breaking the cycle—starting businesses, taking over industries, coding, creating, and charting their courses.

This poem is dedicated to all women who have ever been trapped, silenced, or told to shrink—and to those who are breaking, reclaiming, and rewriting their own stories. I thought appreciating such women breaking big societal barriers will make the Women’s Day very special.

Breaking Chains: A Poem of Self-Discovery and a Women’s Day Tribute

She wakes before the sky hides its stars,
If not, the neighboring aunts will call her lazy
Irresponsible with no Indian values.
Before steam rises from the pot,
she completes her Kolam,
the buzz of boiling tea drowning the dreams
she once said to the wind in her classroom.

The weight of twenty-seven thousand such mornings
rests on her shoulders, killing her career goals.
Some call it a duty,

But she remembers
a little girl standing on a rooftop,
arms stretched wide,
believing she could fly and change the world.

They told her—
“Girls are meant to cook, wash and care for the family.”
“Noble women don’t speak too loud and cannot have stubborn dreams.”
“Girls don’t have personal desires, she is a magnanimous soul.”

She learned to shrink,
fold herself into corners,

Until one day—

She sees a woman in the street,
sitting behind the wheel of a bus,
eyes steady on the road ahead.

A woman in a courtroom,
words slicing through silence,
turning truth into armor.

A woman at her desk,
building empires with Wi-Fi and ambition,
turning side hustles into salaries,
breaking ceilings without stepping outside.

A woman in a café,
laptop open, dreams blooming like Jasmine—
content creator, coder, entrepreuner,
rewriting success in her language.

Also, a woman under a streetlamp,
tired but standing, selling something
not running, not afraid.

A woman logging in,
Into a world of a safe future,
not asking for space but claiming it.

Something shifts.

She looks at her own hands,
calloused from cutting vegetables and washing vessels,
scarred from years of quiet surrender.
She looks at her reflection,
noticing, for the first time,
the fire that never left her eyes.

And she walks,
not fast, not loud,
but forward.

When she speaks,
her voice cracks like a fault line,
but it holds.
When she steps outside,
the world feels bigger,
no longer a cage,
but a road waiting to be walked.

The chains are not made of iron,
but of fear, silence, and “should” and “should not.”
And today,
one by one,
they begin to fall.

by

Shalini Samuel

I wish you a happy Women’s Day in advance!