Being a woman is hard. Really hard.
Everything is exhausting.
It requires tremendous effort just to live a normal life.

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?

She stood, pretty as a picture,
In the midst of a place that despised beauty.
The eyes of the passengers, once cold and dead, were now filled with anger and jealousy.
Filled with unspoken words I’ve heard before.

I was attending a funeral where everyone was in tears.
The widower sat next to me and tearfully asked me,
“When are you going to get married?”

I got married to an old man I didn’t consent to marrying.
Of course, this is how it is in the country.
They act without taking a girl’s consent.
I felt sorry for myself because they married me off to an old man.
gender violence, marriage, divorce, motherhood

I was released by the 4th night.
I went home, carrying the clothes and stuff I had with me in jail.
I knocked on my family’s door.
I needed to go to the bathroom. I wanted to shower and all that.
prison, social stigma, marriage

Don’t shame us.
Do you understand? Don’t you understand?
The towels.
The sheets.

What’s he thinking of?
Does she have the right to say no?
Is it my right to pass judgement on her?
Is it her fault that she’s giving in to society’s standards?