Clueless Ink

I flinch at an unannounced visit.

I can’t sleep alone.

I dream of what men can do.

I brace for that aggression.

I was tough once.

The girl in a black saree, walking brutally at 4 AM.

I’ve roamed cities, slept at bus stations, faced danger head-on.

I’ve been touched, used, molested.

And I moved on.

But now, I hesitate.

I have felt my body handled like cake dough,

Soft, powerless, taken.

And I moved on.

But today, alone in my locked house,

I feel it again.

And I am scared.

Where do these ghosts come from?

Where does that aggression come from?

What makes a man strike, take, silence?

In the last few months, Bangalore has broken something in me.

Harassment, over and over, until fear settled into my bones.

So much that I wonder, should I see a doctor?

Would they diagnose fear?

Or would they just call it being a woman?

I don’t know when a man might decide: today is the day.

I’m not kidding.

I woke up from a bad dream and started typing.

Because I don’t want to live like this.

I want to feel independent again.

I want to break free.

I want to exist without fear.

But fear is a language we are forced to learn.

I just realised,

I watch my words with drivers.

I hesitate before canceling a cab, because now they know my location.

A dead phone isn’t just an inconvenience

I scan their faces for signs of danger.

I adjust, calculate, stay small,

Just so I don’t provoke the wrong man.

I don’t want to piss that man off.

I can’t handle that aggression anymore. And I refuse to live in this fear anymore. 

That girl who once walked the streets like she owned them,

She doesn’t feel the same anymore.

I’m not that girl in a black saree anymore.

I just wish I could be.

But what scares me most,

Is the thought that my partner won’t understand.

That he’ll say “You’re overthinking.”

That he won’t believe me.

That he’ll brush it off “It was just a dream.”

And that’s what terrifies me the most.

Because he’s my man