Now You See Me, Now You Don'T

Your eyes blink in sync with the knives you push into my soul

So now you see me

Now, you are far away, but staring

Scrutiny in every glance

Probably measuring the size of the gladness and excitement that my existence could offer you

My existence, that was, that is

But you plan to let it not be

Maybe you’re just jealous

Jealous of my laughter thundering upon the storming, pearl white tides

And through the wilderness

Right into the centre of the forest- damp, dark forest

Dark like your thoughts, dark is your plan.

Now, you don’t see me

You don’t see that I have a head, four limbs, two eyes, two ears

A heart

A heartbeat, a breath - I’m alive.

I’m living-alive but dead.

Because, now, you are here

In my territory, inside the barbed wire fence that has signboards

In red, bold font asking you to “STOP”

Stop your eyes looking through my clothes

Stop your hands grazing my body

Stop that terrible breath

Because it stinks worse than your false pretence

It stops my fragrance from spreading

Stop.

I do not beg you to stop

I order you to stop

I order you to stop your blaming me

Stop your blaming him

Stop your blaming her

Nobody asked for it.

My clothes did not ask for it.

Pardon my doubt

But tell me how you accuse the Drape of Rape?

If my knee length skirt or my tight shirt asks you to exploit me

I’d start wearing a book, because you are mistaken, ignorant, uneducated

Unworthy

Unworthy to say that she brought it upon herself

The unafraid

She must have been unafraid, because it was ice cold December

Her clothes didn’t ask for it

If you did want a “NO” you should’ve have looked into her eyes

Her tears that flowed down her cheeks

Onto your open hands

Gliding across the lines on your palms

Lines that once prophesied how rich and successful a person you would become

A person-

You chose to be an animal

A rich person-

Alas, you find riches under other’s lockers of flesh and bones

Not only her. You devastated him too.

The atrocities you asphyxiated him with

Forced him to kneel down when he dreamt of towering heights

Trying to be a man like the society wanted him to be, but crawled in his chrysalis

You robbed him too.

You took away from him the choice to be proud of his masculinity

He is cringing at the mere graze of another skin on his own

In this crowded city when he pushes his way through empty people

He is cringing

His eyes are flooding

Her lips are trembling

What do you see?

You

You see you

You don’t see me now

Now that I am in your hands

You don’t see that through your tightening fist

I’m oozing out like sand

I’m done

It’s over, so you leave

But, oh the irony

The monster cares for an apology?

Apologies

Mere words that you blurt out

Like the empty Amen after the brief prayers

That you mouth

Your mouth-deceitful liar

Lies are when you tell me to suffer in silence

Suffer? But why?

You claim that the price of my silence is golden

I say I don’t need your gold

I won’t stay silent

Who are you to command my being to succumb to your waste of space?

Why do you think that I would think that we connect?

We don’t - accept the truth

The truth is that I am not obligated to return your rib to you

Because I have the rib of a man

I have the smile of my father

A man

I am his daughter

He used to tell me stories

What do you tell your daughter?

I have the eyes of my mother

I am her son

She used to bathe me, clothe me

Your son would be so ashamed

Ashamed? I am sorry for you

Ashamed is your father who taught you to walk

When you hung onto his finger by your little hands

And now

You hold onto your toys’ necks

Them dangling, throttled in your emotionless grasp

Ashamed is your mother inside whose womb fireworks created you

And your first cry was like the song of angels, gleeful and triumphant

But you turned out to be devil, my friend

I am born of that same beautiful spark

Inside another mother’s womb

Who cried the same tears when she held me

But you cannot see

Because now, that you need to

You don’t

You don’t understand that our fingernails bruising your skin is not the only weapon we have

Our screams are not our only resort

Scream you will in agony when you go back into the same dust that you and we are made of

Funny it is

And you thought you would remain stronger

But that same strength will prove your weakness

When the Mother Earth rejects your decaying corpse because you

Never were alive

You would scream for a safe place inside the claustrophobic walls of the coffin

But the same monsters that dwelled within you

Will consume you

You will no longer be you

We will no longer be us

But we will live anyhow, struggling, emerging stronger

But you, who salivated at the sight of skin

Will be answerable

Answerable to someone beyond the reach of your lusting grasp

The pinching echo that you can’t silence with a few bucks under the table

Your tongue dripped bitter honey, darling

But how will that tongue respond when He asks you

How much wealth did you gather by robbing souls?

You could have been a human

You could have been my friend

But you are oblivious of the fact that

Inflicting hell doesn’t guide you to heaven

All because

Now you see me, now you don’t.