A Strong Woman

Surovi Bain​

“I like strong women,” he breathes, lips a little too close to

my ear, his beer-stained air mingling with mine and I exhale,

heart aflutter, attention grasped, as he continues to tell me how,

“I am not like the other girls,” as if the other girls could never

be quite so lucky, to be in the position that I am in right now.

My mind races with fantasy at the very thought of spending

the rest of my life raising this man, prior to raising our children 

and all the while simultaneously continuing to raise this man

just so that one day he can look at my daughter and beam,

eyes shining with absolute, unadulterated pride over how 

she is nothing like “other girls,” – so beautiful and so strong, 

just like her mother, except – that will never happen. 

Because on date three, assuming he makes it to date three,

my smart mouth, equipped with its sharp tongue – entirely

unsuited for certain carnal pleasures –  will lose its appeal and 

go from “enthralling” to “grating” and when I admonish, it is

not playful and he begins to piece together, slowly, steadily – 

though as not to win any sort of race – that unfortunately,

accountability is not a form of verbal foreplay and I am no fetish,

no closeted nymphomaniac and maybe he’ll realize that in actuality

he hates strong women almost as much as he likes the idea of

owning them until they are nothing at all like what he claims to like.