I.
I am 15.
6 months ago
a man asked me to marry him.
I said no.
One week later
he came into my bedroom
and poured battery acid
on my face
on my neck.
I awoke to intense burning
thinking I would die
for a moment hoping
I would die.
I have had 8 operations:
face
eyes
neck
I will have 4 more.
The pain does not end.
I will never look
like myself.
Of course people stare
of course
I want to cry.
It hurts to cry.
My eyes remain
like a desert.
II.
I am 15 years old.
4 years ago
my father gave me to a man
with a dowry of a watch, a goat, and a bicycle.
My father had none of these things.
My husband felt cheated.
Surely my husband hated me,
he beat me every day.
People told me
to stay
to stay because
leaving
would be worse.
But one day the rain came.
I felt like the sky laughing
so hard I cried
the flood tore down our house
a falling timber killed my husband.
I got a loan
and began growing crops.
After 2 years
I was wealthy as any man.
I took out more loans
and planted a large crop.
But the rains came.
I felt like the sky mourning,
so deeply I could have laughed crazy,
the flood
destroyed everything.
III.
My 15th birthday just passed.
We ate a very big meal.
A year ago my sisters and I
ate almost nothing.
We fasted to save money.
My mother carries stones
as heavy as I am.
She has done this
all my life.
A year ago
when we began fasting
the 5 of us
moved into one room in our house
and we took two lodgers.
We used all our food money
our rent money
our work money
to buy the village phone.
Having the village phone
is better than my factory job.
I lost that job
because something happened
in New York.
Someone told me
a plane crashed there.
Someone else said a building fell down.
No one really knows.
Maybe they had a flood.