Forest of Discarded Baby Girls

by Christina Sng

No man dares enter

The forest of discarded baby girls

After sundown in the dead of night.

The winds howl

When another girl is left behind,

Always at the edge of the forest

By her father

And weeping mother,

At knifepoint, by the elders.

Any mother who refuses

Is stabbed repeatedly

Till she falls,

Twisting her body to land

On her back, daughter cushioned

Safely on her chest.

Heart hollow, eyes dead,

Her final thought:

Despair

At failing her baby,

While her husband flees

From the forest

As their daughter

Is slowly fed

To the ground.

***

The trees sway and weep

As the baby screams all night

Till day finally breaks

And her cry is cut short.

The forest has embraced her

As one of its own.

***

When they are grown,

The daughters return home,

Each strangling the man

Who discarded her at birth

With the winding branches

That emerge from her fingers.

Afterwards,

She burns his house down

And gathers the mothers

Back to the forest,

The only true place

They can call home.