By Akhila Kommu
Thank you, Mama.
for giving birth to me where I was treated as a slave in the home grave,
for not letting me see the world but letting the world see me,
for not teaching me good touch and bad touch, because of which uncles are touching me below my nape and cousins above my ham,
And you will never let me share about this, which I am unable to realize at 11.
for not caring about my diffidence, which assured you of my confidence,
for letting these get me crestfallen where I am fully impaired,
for letting others take advantage of me and show poor manners like they wanted,
For I am living in peace where aunties are calling me dark and skinny and where you are tied up by relationships that do not mean
for making me a puppet in front of these people who value my salary but not my poetry,
not investing for me but investing in me,
for not getting the idea of me becoming a lawyer in my sick heart but for getting me married to a lawyer who looks at me but not at my hand's scar
And I have seen the sense of my mother-in-law tearing my baby from my womb and selling it for 4 bucks because the baby sounded like 'SHE.'
But, Momma
I wish not to become a mother who gives birth to a child who would be a future slave in the grave named home