Without My Consent

They dressed me in red,

called it love,

called it tradition,

but it felt like a shroud

wrapped around my breathing.

Smiles circled me,

songs filled the air,

yet no one heard

the silence in my throat,

the scream buried

beneath layers of silk and gold.

They said, This is honor.

They said, This is fate.

But whose fate?

Whose honor?

For my heart was not asked,

my voice not given,

my choice stolen before it ever

learned to speak.

I walked,

step by step,

toward a life I did not choose,

the weight of the world pressing

on my trembling hands.

In their eyes,

I was a daughter,

a duty,

a promise exchanged.

In my own,

I was a bird

with clipped wings,

taught to call the cage

my home.

They will never know

what it means

to bury yourself alive

and call it marriage.