My mother raised six girls.
My eldest sister got married when my father was still alive.
The rest of them got married later after he passed.
social pressure, gender violence, motherhood, work, marriage, family, parents

I know how to tweeze and thread.
I'm an employee by day, but I do these things at night.
The troll I'm married to sits at home all day and doesn't make a penny to spend on the kids, and he gives me a beating every other day or so.

Because she wanted her own place.
She wanted to live.
That’s what a marriage contract was to her: freedom.

I remember I went to visit my aunt the morning after her wedding.
Everyone was in the bedroom talking about it.
Everyone would enter and look at the great wonder.

I used to always watch her from the examination room window in the government hospital that I worked at.
Her name was Sokkara. She was young. She couldn’t be older than 13 years old.

I want to be pretty like you.
So people think I’m beautiful when I get married.
But what will happen if I never become pretty like you?

It doesn’t matter at all.
I don’t mind if he marries another woman,
And visits me once a week,
Or even once a month!

I was lost.
I was trying to figure things out.
Where did I go wrong?
The anger I had inside me for wasting years of my life was projected onto my poor son.
I wanted to be selfish.
I wanted to love myself.
I’ve been through enough.
motherhood, marriage, divorce