There are choices we make in life, both good and bad. The choices either push you one or two steps forward, leaves you stationary or pushes you backwards. Think, Newton's laws of motion. That applies to life too. However, there are some choices, that don't feel like choices, for they almost feel coercive in nature, by the environment you were brought up in. Like take this girl, she has an absentee father who she worships, an absentee mother who she's indifferent to, a step mother who is cruel to her, and a plethora of aunts and uncles who reared her in their stead. They tell her to be good, to be kind, to be righteous, to smile, and most importantly be obedient. They say that her worth is tied to her beauty and her womb. They tell her that her purpose in life is to be a "good" wife and then a "good" mother. They tell her that the only way for her to go forward in life is to be tied to a "good" man - not kind necessarily, for kindness is superfluous. They fill her head to the point of over saturation until she defines her self worth with her husband's smiles, his laughs, his letters, and his words. Only, in contrast to her dreams and expectations, her life with her husband starts withering. His smiles are slow to come, his laughs turn mocking, his letters come once in a blue moon and his words trickle to a stop. And yet she loves him, or she convinces herself that she loves him. Because her path forward is tied entirely to him. Her self worth is defined by her waning beauty and her dysfunctional womb. His gaze starts roving and her confidence starts diminishing. His words become cutting and her self loathing pikes. In her desperation, she ignores his rancid breath and convinces herself that it smells like flowers instead. In her desperation she scripts his cruel hands into loving embraces. In her desperation she turns her bleeding raw core into arousal. Coercion? It is a husband's right - her path forward is tied to him. That desperation gifts her with two children. Only the two children are girls - and a part of her soul breaks down in grief, because she has brought into this world two innocent souls who will face the same cruelty as all women do. Will face the same coercive choices that all women do. Who will be weak and will need the protection of a man, the same way all women do. A part of her resents it. Resents her children that she created with her husband's X chromosome. However, she has no choice now. The only way through is forward. A step backwards means the grave, becoming stationary also means the grave, and the grave spells death for her two daughters. Her poor innocent daughters. But innocent they don't remain, meek they are not, fierce they become, rage they breathe. To her dismay, her daughters question her on her choices when she least expects it. After listening to her story, they say, 'Perhaps the grave would have been a better choice for us after all' and her heart breaks.
“Choices” by Sofi Saeed