Child Bride

Her first smile of freedom

Takes shape in the music of

Her kaleidoscopic glass bangles

Her dreams come true

The bangles belong to her

 But they are crushed into a

Thousand fragments under

The weight of his naked

Unleashed passion

On the very first night

She’s stifled in the pungent smell

Of loveless desire

The broken remnants of glass

Scatter multiple colours

On the crumpled bedsheet

But mark her innocence with only red

Like a million arrows shot at once

Her shrieks of terror

Pierce the uncanny silence

Of the dark expanse outside.