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September 15th, 2026
India Poetry Contest #7 – First Place
by Riyanka Ray
What if my father had crossed oceans like his brother did, and built us a life in a land of promise? What if we were raised in quiet homes instead of rooms echoing with shouting and doors that closed too hard? What if my mother and father had loved each other gently and we learned love from softness, not survival? What if my sister and I had a childhood that felt like a fairytale instead of something we had to endure? What if teachers saw beyond our grades and parents listened beyond their pride? What if I wasn’t the “angry daughter” but just a girl begging to be understood? What if my sister didn’t lie awake at night guarding storms that weren’t hers to calm? What if she didn’t have to leave just to breathe? What if I didn’t have to stay and learn loneliness so young? What if we hadn’t given our fragile hearts to boys who mistook vulnerability for weakness? What if we never had to leave the house where we grew up the walls that heard everything, the corners that held our secrets, the windows that watched us grow? What if money wasn’t a weapon, and education wasn’t a blame? What if I chose differently? Loved differently? Lived differently? What if my father saw my love as something beautiful instead of something to deny? What if we were just… a happy family? And then I wonder If all of that changed, would I still be me? Maybe the “what if” was never the point maybe I became strength in a house that tried to make me small. Maybe I am not what broke me I am what survived it. Maybe I am not the angry daughter, I am the unheard child who finally found her voice. Maybe we were never weak just children learning to survive adults. And maybe... the life I kept imagining wasn’t somewhere else. Maybe it begins with me.
About the Poet
Riyanka Ray resides in Kolkata, West Bengal, India.
Read the poet's biography and Wax Poetry and Art publications
on Riyanka Ray's Artist Page.
This poem is also featured in Comet #9, published in the Wax Poetry and Art Library.
Keywords: childhood, daughters, growing up, parenthood
Previously published in India Poetry Magazine:
Bhaiya.
by Pragya Dhiman
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