Diventando~ By Preetha Datta

She smiles at the world,
In her father's arms.
Just a day old,
Not a care in the world.
My heart swells with joy,
As the first word
That escapes her lips,
Is “mama”...
Now she's five,
I wave her goodbye.
As she boards the bus-
It’s her first day of school.
My baby argues at fifteen,
Says she wants to be free
She laughs off
My concerns of safety.
She says she's an adult,
My baby wants to grow up.
I reluctantly let go of her,
Watch as the night swallows her.
I wait with baited breath,
For her to come back.
The night turns old-
Still no sign of my baby.
And after midnight,
When she stumbles in sobbing
One look at her,
I know what I feared has happened.
My daughter-
The one who slept in my arms,
The one whose hair I tied
Now lies broken.
Her screams pierce the house
But her tears dried long ago.
I try to make her forget,
But the wound's too deep.
I know she'll never forget
What these men did to her.
Life is torture for her-
Every waking moment hell.
It didn't surprise me really,
When I walked in
To see her
Hanging from the ceiling.
But the pain-
Who'll numb the pain?
Weeks after she's gone
She's still with me.
My baby wasn't young anymore,
Turned old not with age,
But with the evil,
That crossed her path.
I am her mother-
Not adjusted to the past tense
If only
She'd listened to me that day


Author Bio:
Preetha Datta is a student studying in Ashoka University with ambitions of a degree in Tech with a minor in Creative Writing. She likes to watch movies and travel in her free time, potentially both, together.