Pink Was Her Favorite Color: A Poem

Pink was her favorite color,

A Barbie doll was her favorite gift,

Roller skating was her only passion

Until a new life found her floating adrift.

 

She used to wander the streets, fearless,

Wear clothes without worrying about showing skin,

It didn’t matter if her arms were uncovered

Or if she kept falling again and again.

 

She would eat choco-chip cookies heedlessly,

Indifferent to the disapproving eyes scrutinizing her body.

Mother said that’s the way to live your dream

But come morning she fed her salad and beans.

 

Now purple is her favorite color,

Just like the shade of her easily bruised body.

She gave away all her Barbie dolls

To abandoned little girls as charity.

 

She walks on dangerously high heels

Which make her feet swell up to twice their size,

But she only wears clothes which

Avert men from looking into her eyes.

 

Mother says nothing anymore,

Only her warnings and counsel echo within,

“The world will batter you up, sweetheart,

So just learn to take it on the chin.”

– Rubani Kaur

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Photography Credit: Spencer Selover