Hadisa Osmani
I am your daughter.
When I was born, you punched the wall.
You said:“Why couldn’t it be a boy?”
When I was barely a teen, you married me off*
For a crime your son had committed.
I am the sister you sold
In exchange for livestock.
I am the wife you demanded a child from
When she was fourteen.
I am the neighbor you yelled obscenities at.
I am a woman.
You may not celebrate that I was born female,
But I am happy to be a woman.
You maim my lips and nose.
You sew my mouth shut.
You believe that you can make me submit,
But I was born to be free.
My freedom and independence can not be taken from me
No matter how often you call me “half-brained.”
I am not less.
I am a threat to your power.
You prohibit me from working
because you are afraid of my independence.
You are afraid to admit that we are equals.
For years, I have been silenced,
But I still carry the determination to be free.
And today I have risen up.
*The practice of “bad” in Afghanistan is when tribes or families force their daughters into marriage to settle familial animosity.
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Read this piece in Persian here.