What women thrive

Oh look! That ragged girl is walking again!
Give her some food, I don’t want to see her around here!
Oh, it’s that girl with big eyes staring at those men…
Where is she from? Why can’t she just go there?
Oh no, that girl shouldn’t enter this temple, she is cursed and wicked, I say!
Don’t go near that girl, little kid; she is a disgrace!
Her foul thoughts may give you a bad day today!

Stop! Oh, stop already!
I can’t take in all that you have to say about me.
Stop! All those accusing comments for me…
None of them are true, but why dump it on me?
Stop! Those pitiful looks, with silent disgust inside…
Stop! Those silent smiles behind the innocent faces of those men…

Swish… swish… swish…
It’s the wind that is caressing my face, cool and calm, bringing me back to my senses…
Drip… drip… drip…
It’s the rain that is falling on to me,
Not judging me with disgust at all,
Masking all my tears, giving me utmost solace.
The concrete floor knows how hard it is.
The floor is my life, and it’s how hard it is for me…
Scraps of food on the concrete floor…
That’s what my breakfast, lunch, and dinner look like every day and night.
Under the starry sky, exposed to the whooshing winds,
My favourite pastime is looking at each passing thing…

I sometimes wonder… did I have to end up like this?
I sometimes think… is this a mistake I am making?
I sometimes feel… am I the one who’s guilty?

Then I tell myself, I did the right thing.
I will stand for me and myself.
Never will I accept that I was guilty at all.
Maybe a week or more, maybe months or even years…
I will not say the mistake was mine.
Taking my stand is worth every single drop of my tears.

I look above, I see the same moon shining down all bright.
It was bright that night as it is bright right now…
It was bright on the faces of the men
Who recklessly tried hunting me down…
It showed me the way so I could run,
Away!! far, far from those men
Who all wanted my body just for their fun.
My body wasn’t a toy for them to play with.
My body is my dignity that I take pride in.
My body isn’t what belongs to them,
But they forced to make it theirs and made it sore.

The scars were deep not just on my body,
The scars went beneath the skin right into my heart.

The men forced themselves on me,
Trying to take each piece of mine apart…
That pain was intolerable,
That shock and agony, ah, so horrible.
Yet I ran as much as I could, in that moonlight,
Under the cold winds and stars…
Consoling myself that I have my family, my home,
Trusting them to save me and be the crossbars…
But I was wrong! I was so wrong!
I was a girl, a woman, wasn’t I?
I knew that, so now I question myself: why?
Why did I ever think they would be on my side?
After all, the guilty one is always the woman here,
An unspoken reality, I forgot that we always have to abide.
So the mistake was mine after all,
Thinking my family would believe me was my fall.
The pain didn’t matter, nor the agony…
Only that mattered to them was that I lost my dignity.

Lost it to some unknown men, now I see them every day,
Prowling around the corners for their next pretty prey.
People question why I keep looking at those men so much…
Because they are the sole reason I’m here and such.
Now, on the streets, disowned from my home,
I have no family now, nor someone to say they are my own.

I can barely recognise who I am,
Just a begging stray on the sides of the road.
I am obliged here to accept their hateful stare,
Accept that I am just a walking nightmare…
Those men don’t know who I am,
They don’t even know I exist.
I am just a tramp now, not attractive at all,
Not enough to quench their disgusting thirst.

Should I have just surrendered and let them destroy me even more?
Had I given in to them, would my family have accepted me at all?
Should I have listened when they said,
Not to utter a word and act like it never happened?

Would I have been able to erase the scars within me?
While living again with the family that feels I am guilty?
Was it the way I dressed that I invitingly attracted those men?
My long pants and baggy shirt were revealing enough for them.
What could be less revealing? I can’t imagine anything more than this.
Is there some other rule of being not-pretty that I missed?
Should my identity as a woman mean
I need to endure just pain?
Does my identity as a woman mean
Being guilty every time is what I have to feign?
Will every woman be thrown out right on the street
For going against harassment and rape?
No woman will be in her home then,
For every woman, every day, gets harassed in life.
No woman will be left for men to have as a wife,
If going against harassing men is what women in future will thrive…