Wedded in her infancy
Her child-groom in his pain
Learnt to lash out
At the only one he had power over
The one his heart pined for
The songs of the city beckon
Her sister and her brother in law
Smooth, suave, a kinder patriarchy
She quivers with each thump on the door
Her intoxicated husband
The desire for control over her beauty
His seething hatred for her
The lies on his wine moistened breath
The insults meant to denude the soul
The pummeling by night
The slap that wakes her
The weight by a blood soaked sheet
Once upon a time she loved this man
Now in fear he forces her love
That if she ever chose to, she'd run away
Run, run, run across the hills and valleys
And never look back
When the concerned folk come at her door
He snarls that it is his business
That his izzat cannot be compromised
The honor of a rapist
The fear of an abuser
That one day in Court he face justice
The appeals to God
The disbelief in the Divine
The most respected man
In a village of rapists
His parents who sold him into marriage
The evil touch, the memories of the cane
The sobbing in secret into a pillow
The obsession with building his muscles
So that nobody may touch him again that way
And his wife may not strike back
The wounded children trembling behind her
The house that he was given as dowry
Her possessions in a box locked with his key
Her cheap cellphone, her flashlight
Her purse in which he flips a rupee into nightly
And when the angels sweep into the village
He locks her in so she may not testify to Allah
He locks them out with an oath
To a God that hates him
Sometimes her sister visits her
They compare stories and welts
The progressive man and his sleight of hand
The brute and his clenched fists
He suspects Mr City and Mr City suspects him
But he approves of how Mr City does things
He has heard rumors about his Technique
How he refined it from the run of the mill
After his wife threw him out of her house
How he tells lies in his frank honesty
And pays off the police to look the other way
How he plans to return home someday
And marry his daughters off
Mr City admires him too
How he keeps his wife in check
How he let his child go for the sake of manhood
Trained his sons in his own image
Most of all, Mr City admires him
Because he can show his wife the Alternative
The danger of dreaming
The Harsh Truth in its subtle falsehood
He doesn't like the Khap Panchayat
He prefers the Court Decree
She sits in the corner of her bare room
Tiny fists balled in the moonlight
That falls in through the window
Onto the floor of her home
That she fought for in every way she could
The pleading for humanity
The bricks she flung in vain
The children she hurt in doing so
The son who hates her
From his refuge with her in-laws
The innocent doppelganger of his father
The son her husband let die
The daughter who took on her appearance
The coarse patriarchy of the village elders
The experts with their long fancy words
The attractiveness of submissive denial
The inability to forget her dreams
She sits by her daily pebbles and sings
To her sister, to her daughter, to her sons
Of a future she asks Allah for every night
Softly she croons in her cage
To Freedom
Written listening to "Hum Dekhenge", as written by Faiz Ahmad Faiz and performed by Iqbal Bano.
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