When your gaze found mine, the whole world swayed, As if the earth had missed a hidden beat; The sunlight suddenly grew unafraid, Then melted like warm gold around my feet. I tried to look away, but something stayed, A trembling little universe in you; My eyes became two doors I could not close, And every secret seemed to wander through. I felt my cheeks turn roses in the rain, A sudden fire underneath my skin; The stars began to whisper my sweet shame, While little suns kept blooming from within. Your eyes were not just eyes, they were a place, A strange blue room where gravity was gone; I wandered through the silence of your gaze And somehow lost the person I was on. My heartbeat stumbled, then forgot its name, It ran barefoot through corridors of light; I blushed as though the moon had called me beautiful, Then hid my face from heaven's watching sight. The trees leaned closer, jealous of the view, The flowers opened wider just to see; Even the wind became unusually shy, As thoug...
They named her their daughter-in-law.
before she learned her own name.
Marriage found her young,
not as a choice,
but as a destination already decided.
Her hands were trained
before her mind was asked.
Sweep. Cook. Obey.
Fetch water before sunrise,
carry firewood before thought.
This is the alphabet she was taught.
Village dust settled into her thoughts,
not because she lacked vision,
but because no one let her look past the hills.
Days repeat like commands—
live, work, sleep, repeat—
a body moving on borrowed instructions.
She lives under rules that never asked her consent.
Love is a duty.
Silence is respect.
Endurance is praised as strength.
She moves like a machine
that never learned it could choose its direction.
The city is a rumor.
Education, a foreign language.
Opportunity, a story told to other women,
in other words,
with better luck at birth.
And yet—
this is the cruelest part—
No one knows what she could have been.
No one tested her mind.
No one stretched her curiosity.
No one gave her light
or freedom,
or a book that asked questions instead of giving orders.
She might have been brilliant.
Strategic.
Inventive.
A voice meant for rooms beyond mud walls.
A talent large enough for the globe,
compressed into survival.
What a world she is living in-
not because she is small,
But because her world was made small for her.
And a good life, in a place she lives,
means learning how to live well under marriage rules,
To live like a slave and disappear
without ever being called lost.
© 2026 Gloria Penelope
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