An uncanny fear
Since her birth
Consumed her

The fear of imprisonment
Putrefied her veins
The fright of a steep fall
Chained her feet
Her first encounter with desire
Was the wish to sit behind the safety of a closed door
Her initiation into curiosity
Was witnessing the streets from the shelter of a window

When some time passed
A feminine perception imposed a body upon her
The weight of protecting this new body
Crystalized this body into her shame

This body (this shame)
stirred many claimants
Her heart, barely audible to anyone
Adorned in fears
Wreathed in countless timidities
Her fear of imprisonment made real

Then came maturity
Her innocence, gone with adolescence
Her vision a bit clearer
She approached the threshold of freedom
But tiny hands descended upon her feet like chains

Now she treads the road to lifelessness
Frozen eyes, don’t hold onto any dreams
Feet, robbed of even the desire of another destination
Those tiny hands, her chains, are too far
Trampled by their own shame
Confined in similar imprisonment
Trapped in their own tiny chains

An inscription adorns her dark cell:

“Here lies Dildar Begum
The chaste, the virtuous, the patient, the grateful lies here
Strangers are prohibited here except to pay respects
But only if you maintain your distance from Dildar Begum”