A little girl
no taller than the stove,
stood on borrowed bricks
to reach the fire.
Flames kissed her fingers
before the world ever did.
Her palms learned heat
before they learned to hold pencils.
She was eleven
the smallest shadow in the room,
the last to eat,
the first to rise.
At that age
her universe should have been
notebooks blooming with ink,
desks carved with secret dreams,
laughter echoing through corridors.
Instead,
smoke filled her lungs,
and responsibility
too heavy for her narrow shoulders
–
wrapped itself around her
like an invisible chain.
Cooking was meant to be pretend play,
tiny cups and toy kitchens,
giggling make-believe.
But her play burned real,
and the fire did not care
that she was still a child.
And then –
before her voice found its strength –
they wrapped her in red,
called her bride,
called her wife,
called her homemaker.
Names too large
for a heart still learning to beat steady.
Her dolls were replaced
with duties.
Her schoolyard
with silence.
In the quiet of her new home
she wonders –
Who writes the fate
of little girls?
Who steals crayons
and replaces them with cooking oil?
Is love supposed to feel
like surrender?
Is obedience
the price of being born a daughter?
Her pain sits unspoken
between folded clothes and washed plates.
No one asks
if her dreams survived the fire.
This is not destiny.
This is betrayal dressed as tradition.
This is childhood
folded away too soon.
And somewhere beneath the ashes,
a small girl still whispers
“I wanted to learn.
I wanted to play.
I wanted to grow.”
I’m Manasa Reddy Chichili, a poet from Hyderabad, Telangana. My haiku and tanka have been published in several journals such as Under the Basho, Mainichi Haiku and others. My haiku was nominated for the Touchstone Award (2025), and I have also dabbled in writing haikus directly in Japanese, which I submitted to haikutown.jp.