Born a Girl Child

By Jess L.

The tale began when she was but a young girl,

Thin and frail and naïve,

Lost in dreams and unkempt future,

She sang her hearts out loud;

Like a fierce lioness she wanted to be,

And dazzling as a peahen,

Enchanting like the famed nightingale,

But the world mocked her in return.

So melancholy ate her insides,

Blue and glum replaced her sunny smile.

One asked where the cheeriness had gone,

Where she replied,

Why was she born a girl child.

Born the third child and only female,

Three males and two females were her family.

Had copper yet without gold,

Her family was in hard times.

In that time she committed the gravest sin,

And fell in love with secrets of the world,

No one knew the trysts she had at night,

Neither the brothers nor the parents,

But only with her elders’ books they shared their secrets,

Then would whisper sweet nothings to each other

Which she never understood what,

Then came the rage of her father.

It was on her tenth birthday she understood

How wicked the world can be when it wants to,

But her only fault was asking

For just a small piece of knowledge,

A tiny fragment of her brothers’ privilege,

Yet was met with the thunderous roar of her father,

And her ten year old was made to understand,

That copper can never become gold,

So she sat quietly in the corner,

Listening, despairing and desiring

The future her brothers were making,

While there she was

Loved books yet chained in the cookery.

Decade passes like daylight,

Then came the twentieth time of her birthday,

Dressed in red and filled with beauty,

Joy and pride filled her parents’ face.

Yet she, the one person supposed to be the happiest,

Was struggling to fight her tears.

Oh how unfair and horrible this world can be!

How such a burden could they put on her,

She was but a child, a youngling!

But her inner voices were stomped upon,

By the parents’ laughter, the brothers’ chatters

And the sweet smile of her groom,

Whom she wished she had met before.

Like how the wise old man told his tales,

History do repeats itself.

Like the phrase that says ‘life goes on’,

There came a time when she was made to bore a child,

A happy and joyous moment it was meant to be,

But gloomy days were upon her,

Like poison it quietly crept inside her heart,

And took the one thing that was beautiful to her,

A precious treasure she happily carried,

But now she was left bare,

So she cried and cried till her tears run dry,

Just like her mother did all those years ago,

Because no one likes a girl child.

She quietly asked herself what sin she committed,

But no one has answer to that, she knew.

She likes raising questions sometimes,

Like what the world would have been like

If she was like her brothers?

Would the world still be cruel to her?

Or would it be cruel but gentle on her?

She didn’t know the answer to that,

So the only thing she knew to do, was pray and pray,

So she wouldn’t born a girl child in her next life.

By Jess L.