Wadia Samadi
I am born, and it is all quiet at home.
To my parents I am already someone else’s property.
My life, my future will be shaped under their authority.
I don’t remember much of my childhood.
I am taught the duties of a wife when I am too young.
I am supposed to obey with a sealed tongue.
My dreams, my dolls are snatched away. I cook, I clean.
My puberty worries my parents; they put an end to my education.
I am told to stay at home–the start of my incarceration.
Marriage is the next step. What my parents have been waiting for.
Young, old, rich, poor, married, educated or uneducated: a suitor of their choice.
No matter what I want in life, in a husband, in a marriage; I have no voice.
I am in his house: a stranger in an unfamiliar world. An odd emotion.
I look coy, demure and smile with content as I am taught.
When did I grow up? I wonder. Life has come to naught.
A month has passed and I am expected to be a mother.
My husband, his mother, his sister, his aunts are waiting for the good news.
After all, I am married to give them a child. This demand I cannot refuse.
My fate has brought me to a tortuous road of uncertainty. I mother a girl.
The quietness in the house. The wickedness of the in-laws. Why?
“Are they not born from a woman?” I ask in my doleful cry.
She is my daughter. My treasure trove. My reason to fight.
She will have her dolls. She will go to school. And she will dream.
I will stand by her against everyone. The light of her life will always gleam.
Read this piece in Persian here.