🩸 They Hit Me for Speaking

They didn’t say,

“We’re afraid for you.”
They didn’t say,
“You’re brave, but be careful.”
They didn’t say,
“We disagree, but we love you still.”

No.

They hit me.

My mother’s hand.
My father’s anger.
A smack to the head
As if fear could be beaten out of a daughter.

And maybe they were scared.
But I was too.
And I still stood.

I had not cursed.
I had not lied.
I had taken my words—
Polished them with thought,
Carved them with care,
And sent them into the world
Like an arrow wrapped in silk.

But they did not read what I wrote.
They only saw the fire.
And tried to put it out with pain.

Still, I burned.
Quietly.
Fiercely.

Because there was no justice
In protecting the powerful
At the cost of my truth.

I had more courage
Than distant relations who cried “marg bar Shah”
In streets they fled from,
Only to grow silent
In the face of rot within their own walls.

I had no sword.
No rifle.
No army.
Only a pen.
Only a letter.

But it was enough
To shake men with titles.
To cause discomfort in high places.
To make someone ask,
"Who is this girl
With so much fire in her ink?"

They had the platform.
I had the pen.
Only one of us used it well.

And when the dust had settled,
When I sat—eyes red, breath short—
He came.
My uncle.

He held me.
Told me I got this fire from him.
That if he’d ever met that man in person,
He would have slapped him himself.

He said,
“I could never have written what you did—
But I wish I had.”

In his arms, I did not feel like a disgrace.
I felt like a warrior
Who had returned from battle,
Still standing.

So when they struck me—
I did not fall.
Because he held me up.

I wrote again.

Because I am the child of fire,
And fire does not beg for permission.