#metoo

The statuses keep popping up in blue
confessing they were assaulted too.
But I can’t use my real name, they say.
My name is also my family’s.

“So are you gonna pretend that nothing happened?”
My conscience pricks with its thorny sound dagger.
“Among all these wounded women,
you once envied to be too lucky?”

“Then why do you still fear dark corners and seats?
Why do you fear crowded streets ?
Why do you rush home before it gets dark?
Why do you still shiver when people almost touch you?”

I know… I know…
You don’t have to say it out so loud.
Oh Jesus! How I wish
It never happened to me.

“Yeah… but so does she
and every other girl who wrote it on their wall.
But Alas! That ain’t possible.
Some nightmares ain’t nightmares after all.”

Guess all daddy’s princesses grow up to learn,
life is no fairy tale.
But daddy you can be proud.
I have learnt some other lessons too.

I’m my pepper spray.
I’m my night torch.
I’m my emergency number.
I’m my pink patrol police.

I’m not my ladies coaches in train.
I’m not my lowered glances and shawls.
I’m not my silence.
I’m not my submission.

I’m my voice shouting back at them.
I’m my anger fighting against them.
I’m my refusal to be a victim.
I’m my own guardian angel and super hero.

But that doesn’t make it a lie, you see,
that it happened to me too.
On a sunny bright monday morning
on my way to school.

In a crowded private bus,
I cried clutching my heavy schoolbag.
But back in class, my friends consoled me saying
it happened to “them too”.

Oh! Just so you know.
Remember the time he fought for a cycle?
Everyday for a whole week until he got one?
He was not being stubborn, it happened to him too.