The salt that bites the open skin

Dear Delyara, You want to know about pain? Try working the commercial fish docks when you’re nineteen, with a name the locals can't pronounce and a back that feels like it’s being torched by kerosene. My uncle promised me this port town was paved with gold if I left Algeria behind. He lied. He took my transit papers, locked them in his safe, and told me I owed him for the boat crossing. Every morning at 4:00 AM, the freezing Mediterranean spray hits my face, and the salt getting into the raw cuts on my fingers makes me want to scream for my mother. I can still smell the rotting mackerel on my clothes when I try to sleep. The bruises on my ribs from when his foreman pushed me against the iron crane have gone yellow, but the hatred in my throat is still bright red.