My story isn’t about physical or emotional abuse.
I got married when I was 21 years old.
He was the first man I ever spoke to.
That’s how we were raised.
I took very good care of myself.
It was the summer break of year seven.
I was on the beach with my parents and relatives.
I saw him trying to get closer.
There was nothing I could do though.
After a while I went for a walk.
He followed me and then his mom called on me and asked “what year are you in?”
“I am in year seven”
In middle school,
I used to love wearing shorts and dancing in front of the mirror.
My mother would smack me.
Why can’t we publish the story?
It doesn’t have any profanity in it.
“Doesn’t it mention extramarital sexual activity?”
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.
My mother has been getting on my nerves ever since the divorce.
“She’s become so rude ever since her second marriage,” she’d say whenever I joked around or said anything.
social pressure, gender violence, marriage, divorce, parents