The eleventh child

This is from the point of view of Mariam,a fifteen year old girl who was always called a 'harami' (bastard) by the only person who cared for her in the world- her mother. One day, she goes to visit her rich father's house 2 kms away despite her mother saying ' i will die if you go'. She realises that her father didn't really love her and was ashamed of his illegitimate child and she returns to find that her mother has hanged herself.

Would it have been the same?

If I had listened to what she had said,

If I had stopped to consider her plea to stay,

If I hadn’t cast them off.

Engulfed in the lies in a fantastic world,

Enveloped in a happiness that was born out of penance.

I was drawn, drawn afar.

Pulled into it by helpless longing.

Was it wrong? Was it a crime?

To want to have a chance,

To want to believe, to want to hope.

It must have been,

For my very existence has been a sin.

I knew not the true ways of the world,

I knew not how to see through the mask,

I had looked at it all through the eyes of a child,

And that was how I lost it all.

I failed to see what was really mine,

I failed to realise whom to trust.

She asked me to stay,

And I left her.

Only later did I realise the true price of that mistake.

But should I not be glad? Should I not rejoice?

That finally, I had seen him for what he really was.

That I had understood what he did was out of guilt,

That behind the calm words lay the shame.

He said ten, but there were eleven.

Cast out, out of his mind,

Cast out, out of his, my father’s true family.

While I waited at the gate every Thursday,

While I counted every second, hoping it would last,

He counted the moments it would take,

To be back home where his heart lay.

For he counted ten when there were actually eleven.

And I bet my heart on him.

So on that night, when I returned,

I had thought about what I would say.

Would it be an apology for abandoning her?

Or Would I just try to avoid her?

She had said that she was all I had.

It was too late when I realised the truth of that.

For the chair lay upturned, the branch unmoving,

The house was empty, but the tree held a body.