Woman, Abused

By Shweta Khare

She sat beside her sleeping daughter nestled in the warm depths of woven layers. Her gently rising and falling chest was a hypnotic rhythm, a slow drip of analgesic spreading through her veins. She looked at her delicate outline awash in lambent moonlight and felt the knotted pain dissolve into sedate nothingness. Half-conscious and drifting, she could almost touch the Elysian calm. But she knew, the storm was not so far. Surging and unbridled, she could feel the tempest pounding at the floodgates, not so far. She looked at her watery half-reflection in the dark mirror; she saw the glaring imperfections screaming out at her. 

At times she wonders what scares her more. Is it the mortifying abuse he wields or her infinite capacity to endure it all? … Her withered past plays out the macabre reality of her life. Consumed in rage, he was shouting at her. His deafening voice was the only thing reverberating within, crushing her inside with its sheer intensity. Her leaden heart sinks at the sight of pure hatred, at the sight of pure vengeance etched out on every single line of his hardened face. With a firm-set jaw she fights back a shudder of tears. A firm-set jaw so tightly clenched as if to restrain her grieving soul while the onslaught begins yet again.

She has scoured the depths of her soul; she has searched in the hearts of her heart, to know why. To know how can a person be so merciless, so heartless. But all she is left with is a pervasive, overwrought helplessness and the blue-black of scars she will forever hide from a million eyes.

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It felt unreal, like this could not possibly be happening. Years of violence had left her with a distorted sense of reality, numb and unfeeling. Although she had grown to become so dead inside, she knew that the pain was very real…The pain that stirred her when his acerbic subtle corrosion at her self-worth, flayed her flesh. Every word, his every action bore into her- that she is an ugly, a worthless being until this was the only truth she knew. Living a life of contradictions- a smile on face, her façade to hide her writhing despair. Ending it all is the only escape. So alone, so miserably alone and for so long she has suffered….there is nothing left in her hollowed remains. The thought is almost happy, the thought to be finally free. But then she is appalled at this vile thought, disgusted by her spineless, craven self. No, her daughter’s dreams are not as hollow; her daughter’s dreams are not as empty. 

And when she looks at her, the fell clutch of misery slips away…Maybe she wasn’t beautiful in the eyes of the man she had once pledged her heart to. Maybe she didn’t get the love she so yearned for, from the man she had once pledged her everything to. But now when she saw herself through the eyes of her daughter, she knew she had someone to give her unconditional love to, once again. She was beautiful…Once again. She picked up her daughter, rapt asleep and clutched her to her chest as she left that night. She was leaving, leaving behind the weight of yesteryears. She was leaving, leaving behind all her fears. The wind wailed for her sorrow that night, rushing past her silently falling tears of absolution. She was leaving, leaving behind the weight of yesteryears…and she was a woman abused, no more. 

She is a woman and God! She is beautiful.