I step onto my balcony and the cold air hits my purple and blue skin turning it red so it looks like I am made of a rainbow. The sparkly glow of the stars shine down on my skin illuminating it in the frosty bite of winter. I’m alone out here with the stars and the cold and nothing else. I gaze at the stars and the small voice in the back of my head that still believes in fairy tales and true love tells me to make a wish. But, I know that the stars do not hold the power of wishes. Wishes do not come true. Just like love can not be true and dreams do not become reality. 

Reality is the purple and blue mark of fingers that line my throat. The number of reddish-pink spots that prick my arms in a hickey shape of pain. There is no fairy godmother with a soft girly voice. Instead there is the deep booming voice of a man that questions, “Where were you?” in such a harsh way it makes me flinch. The bitter voice that makes my knees shake when I’m in the garden too long or the maids can not find me .

Ever since those six years ago when father sent me to marry this evil man for the money he probably never received, I have wished upon the stars. I wished they would realign themselves and make me love him. I wished they would make him love me. I wished he would stop leaving the reddish pink fist sized spots on my skin. I even wished that I would never bear children so they would never have to go through the pain I could not protect them from. I wished the chains around my wrists would disappear. But, wishes do not come true. 

And I never loved him nor will I ever be able to. He may say he loves me but the hand prints that trace my body say otherwise. And my baby that cries in the night only causes more pain for when I can not get her to shush by singing to her, or feeding her, or changing her, when there is nothing else and she will not stop. My husband, he does what he thinks necessary and, when I cry out for him to stop he shushes me as well. I run a finger over my mouth, dragging at the swollen skin.

Yes, he makes me shush by punching me so hard my bones clatter and my teeth shake in their core. That baby that cries at night brings me only more pain. And, she will witness this pain for herself for when she is older, she shall get hurt just as bad as me. I know that wishes do not come true for if they did I would not still be here. If wishes came true, I would not have my purple and black spots that line my white skin. If wishes came true, I would love him, or, simply, he would love me enough to not have to hurt me. Even though he always says, “I hurt you because I love you”, if wishes came true, he would hear the lie in his words. However, wishes do not come true, no matter how hard I wish. But, as I look at the shining stars, I wish that this is all just a dream, and, one day, I’ll wake in a reality where wishes do come true.