I was born with books in my hands,
But they handed me bangles instead.
My brother stumbled through every class,
Still, they crowned him the family’s head.
“Let him dream,” they said with pride,
“He must build a name, a life, a home.”
While I—just a girl—was taught to shrink,
To clean, to cook, to never roam.
I read in secret, wrote in fear,
Lit tiny fires they couldn’t see.
Because dreams are dangerous for girls,
Especially ones like me.
At twenty, they gave me away,
Dressed in gold, draped in grace.
He smiled, his family smiled
Until they looked beyond my face.
No questions about what I knew,
No care for what I’d done.
Just a demand wrapped in velvet words:
A car. A fridge. A son.
And that night when silence fell,
He searched for proof on crumpled white.
As if my worth could bleed or not,
In one dark, broken night.
No crimson came, no sacred stain,
And suddenly, I became a lie.
“She’s not pure,” his mother hissed,
And the whispers multiplied.
No one asked if he was clean,
If he had touched or kissed or lied.
Because there’s no test for a boy’s past
His body never has to testify.
He could have loved and left and lied,
And still be called a saint.
But I, without a drop of red,
Was branded with their taint.
My parents wept, but not for me
For honor, name, and face.
Not for the child they silenced young,
But the shame they can’t erase.
But let the world remember this
Not every flower bleeds to bloom.
Not every sheet tells the truth,
And not every silence is a tomb.
I am not their stain to wash,
Not their price, nor proof, nor sin.
I am the fire they tried to drown,
Still burning loud within.
So teach your sons a better truth,
And raise your girls to rise.
Because worth is not in blood or sheets,
But in hearts that defy the lies.

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