Freedom

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This is a short story in verse about a woman who suffered domestic violence for her daughter's sake year after year. But she stood strong in the face of adversities in the hope of freedom which she was endowed with after her daughter was married away. In the autumn of her life, she asked for a divorce from her husband.

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As the bonhomie of celebration
Subdued to a dull echo
It was time to take a deep breath
Sit and ruminate
On the past
Mending the broken heart
Over joyous whoops
Of regained strength
The tortuous days of
Bleeding by the prick of deadly thorns
Were over at last….

Days of soft caring fingers pasting a band-aid
With everlasting tenderness
She recalled with a wan smile on her lips

Two drops of tears
Welled up the brim of
The delicate rims
Frilled with dew shy lashes

She remembered the gashes
Too, the venomous slashes
Which love lashed on her
The parched throat
The choked heart
The thirsty eyes longing for
A lone dream
A single word
Glass thin
“Are you fine?”

No! Amidst the pall of gloom
Her sobs echoed with weird vibrations
Till there was nothing left
But an empty cocoon
A thin membrane
Stretched brutally across brittle bones
Tearing tissues, blocked arteries, seething veins

But she carried on…
Tied by an oath
For light years

Till the bells chimed
It was time to say good bye
To her dear heart
To those tender fingers
Which had wiped her tears
For three decades
Strangled by wedlock

Now as she felt the chains melt away
She rejoiced freedom
Today when moon shines in her hair
And sun has left its tan on her skin
She looks up to the sky and sings
“I am free”
Today she has signed on the dotted lines
And sealed the estrangement
Permanently with ink
And earned her breath back
Today she is free…