When I think of the word “Mama,” I don’t think of warmth or lullabies.

I think of the sound of shouting the kind that made my small body tremble. I think of the sting of a slap that came faster than a thought. I think of hiding behind doors, under the bed, in the storeroom, under tables, and inside myself.

My mother started hitting and hurting me before I even understood what love was supposed to feel like. Eye contact was dangerous. Smiling at a stranger was rebellion. Compliments were invitations for punishment.

If someone said, “She’s so cute,” I learned to shrink. Because I knew what came next.

At home, I wasn’t allowed to be seen. Once, when a neighbour said, “Oh, she’s grown so pretty,” my mother’s face twisted into something unrecognisable.

Minutes later, I was on the floor, her rage spilling like poison. She tore a chilli padi apart and rubbed it across my face the burning was so sharp that my eyes swelled shut. When my father came home, she told him I did it to myself. And he believed her.

I learned silence was safer than truth.

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As a child, I became an expert in disappearing.

I could sense the shift in her breathing, the storm before it came.
I memorised the sound of her footsteps and built escape routes in my mind.

To her, I was a mistake a girl she never wanted. I was a reminder of everything she couldn’t control.

After dinner, she’d sit me down like a ritual and whisper venom into my ears:
“You’re so ugly and dumb. I picked you up from the rubbish bin. You’ll grow up ugly and useless. You’ll marry at sixteen because that’s all you’re good for.”

Once, I asked why she hated me.
She slapped me so hard that I fell to the ground.

She removed my clothing and forced me into the corridor, where my small, exposed body is visible to anyone passing by. I remembered I was about 4 or 5. She had fun humiliating me; she only took me in when the neighbours told her they would call the police.

My neighbour, an elderly lady, saw me naked, and tears welled up in her eyes. My mother laughed.

That night, I learned not to ask the question “why.”

At 4 or 5, I often wondered, Why am I alive?

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From A Girl Who Is Learning To Smile From Within
For every child who grew up hiding,
and every adult still learning how to come out of the dark. 🌙