Do not weep for me. Weep for the world that made a queen out of a ghost.

I am Phoolan. Flower. And even a flower, when stepped on enough times, grows thorns the size of daggers.

I learned that a woman’s body is a country with no borders. Any man can march across it. Any man can raise his flag.

They called me a river, because you cannot step in the same water twice. First, I was a trickle—a girl in a dry village, my shadow sold for a goat and a sack of grain. They put their hands in me. They called it custom. They put their chains on me. They called it marriage.

So I became the flood.