"A Daughter’s Quiet Truth"

 A daughter is born,

and the walls begin to breathe.

She becomes the light in every corner,

the warmth that softens walls,

the laughter that lingers in rooms.

She grows beneath the same roof —

mornings with her mother,

evenings by the window,

nights speaking softly to her father.

Every brick remembers her heartbeat,

every corner smells of her childhood —

her joy, her tears, her innocence.

Years pass like gentle winds.

She gives her youth to that house,

her hands to its chores,

her heart to its people.

And then she hears it —

“One day, you will go to your own home.”

She wonders, “Isn’t this my home?

The place I was born,

where my laughter still floats in the air?”

But whispers grow louder and louder—

“It’s time now… you should marry.”

The wedding day arrives —

like a polite storm.

She hugs her father gently,

for tight hugs break people.

She steps out slowly,

afraid her memories might fall from her shoulders.

Behind her, a home becomes a memory.

In her new house,

she learns a new way to live —

new footsteps, new ways to sit,

new words for hunger.

They tell her, “Now this is your home.”

She smiles —

because she knows a strange truth:

in one house, she was raised to leave;

in another, she must learn to stay.

In both, she is a guest

who must behave well.

Years later, she visits her childhood home.

Her room has changed,

her bed belongs to someone else.

And her mother asks softly,

“Will you stay only two days?”

She realizes:

A daughter is born in a house,

raised in a house,

married from a house,

sent to a house.

She belongs everywhere,

yet nowhere.

She builds homes with her love —

but none of them ever call her their own.

— Sobiya Amin