The Woman In Her 20

Written by Tia

26 years ago, on that fateful day of July

someone I come from, 

turned 20.

A woman with burning ambition, vigour, and youth

With a mind of her own

and  dreams

and her views of the world.

Her wants and desires were kept inside her heart, shielded away from the noises of the world.

Someday she waited, someday she hoped 

that she would fulfil her dreams

with her knight in shining armour.

But didn’t the wise sages say,

those knights in shining armour 

only reside in fiction.

The real world does not have any.

She was young, hopeful, naïve

And wanted to escape her prison called family.

So, she took the hand of the first man

who gave her the promise of another life.

Another life….

That life was oceans away,

far away from everything she had ever known.

But she took it

in her young vigour, zeal, excitement

and in the hopeful promise of a blossoming love

She took that chance of another life.

The day came, the wedding day.

and she was there gladly, stepping 

into that another world.

She took along her vigour, her passions, her dreams and desires

into that another life

with no guarantee or promise of her sustenance

from the people in her ‘new life’.

Those people…oh my word, them.

They were strict critics of anyone new.

With long noses and small minds,

the tongue was their weapon.

And my oh my,

they attempted to slash this woman

left, right and centre.

Gnawing at her dignity, her name, her self.

But she hoped for the arrival

of the one

of him

the man she married

who she believed

To be her knight in shining armour.

But henever responded,

to the slashes thrown at her.

Nor did he ever

defend nor stand in her name

in respect for another human,

for his woman.

She fought and fought

while he hid himself comfortably

in his cowardice, that bore so much strength

deep within his chromosomes.

You soon see that

as the years pass, 

he becomes the very culmination

of all the monsters

she encountered

at the beginning of her ‘another’ life.

But to expect her to bow,

to expect her to fight,

to stay kind

is too much of an expectation to keep.

When one is hurt, 

one becomes 

a mighty weapon that can harmt.

A weapon made with blunt force.

The pain that it bore

turned her into a knife

with real sharp edges.

And that brought

all of her demons to the front row.

So, when this woman

saw anyone

who resembled her,

another girl, another woman

of her kind

she unleashed her knives on this new soul

in her desperate struggle to quieten this little heart down.

Because she now believes

that her and anyone like her, 

is the problem.

She bled as the devil, and she made anyone bleed

who wanted to hold her with love.

She made bleed all the tiny little innocent souls,

searching for the sunlight and the warm summer breeze

of knowledge and kindness.

She became the captor and captured all these little hearts

under the single chained word of obedience. 

She churned agreement and unquestioned loyalty

and stripped off humanity and respect from all the souls she touched.

Her deed was to nurture

but she destroyed.

Because all those times when she needed nurturing

when she needed to be held

when she needed her innocent soul to be loved,

there was not one kindred spirit

who gave her the love she deserved.

So, she captured and unleashed her demons

onto anyone whom she believed resembled her.

What did she resemble, you may ask

Femininity, Girlhood,

a person with innocence, 

who once had vibrant dreams and aspirations.

Her humanity was simple, 

but her edges were made 

to be raw and undusted.

She fought and she killed.

She hurt herself and others.

She loved, and she didn’t.

She rose and she fell.

Entangled in the nerve endings of small minds

attempting to fit amongst them to ‘belong’.

But she entangled harder amidst their tongues

and turned her own into a deadly weapon.

That killed more.

Including the soul penning these words down…

As days passed on in a monotony,

her dignity was stripped away

in the name of love, in the name of home, in the name of culture.

By the painful phenomenon of Patriarchy.

As the demons she fought grew larger around her,

so did her own demons.

They engulfed any sense of humanity 

that remained in her mind, heart and soul

And she grew to become hoarser

crueller, unkinder, 

but most importantly

unloved.

She remains to be the woman

who still somewhere

seeks out  love, seeks out  someone 

to hold her,

to love her,

to see her as human.

Someone who could be the knight of her heart

Of her spirit.

But I wish

she had realised that she is

the knight of her own heart and spirit. 

It has been  26 years since..

And today,

I stand as the woman

who turns 20.

What will be my fate?

That of the woman I spoke of

Or, something else?

Will I break the chains of perpetual patriarchy?

Or will I too,

get stuck in the centre of this cyclone…

Will I be victorious,

26 years from now?

Will my spirit be as alive as I want it

26 years from now?

Or would I too, be stripped away 

of my dignity

of my voice

of myself

Would I be free from the chains of generational trauma?

Or 26 years from now

will I be

the very Demon,

I never wanted to be.