Please allow me to walk the street
Without being for your eyes a treat
Don’t look down my shirt
Don’t check the length of my skirt
My bosom is round, my hips are tight
But none of these are for your delight
Burqua, jeans or any clothes are my fashion
Why should I dress with caution?
I may be a child, a girl, a woman, don’t stare
To assault me like that, how do you dare?
I am your mother, your wife, your daughter, your sister
To abuse me this way, the courage how do you muster?
How can you put me through this degradtion?
I am not an object for your consumption
My body and soul is not for you to plunder
Why do you differentiate because of my gender?
After you destroy me, I am to blame
Live an entire lifetime of fear and shame
Why are you so drunken with power?
How on me this torture you shower?
Upon my sanctity this way you thunder
Are you even human, I genuinely wonder?
The rest of you all just stand by and stare
To stand for me can none of you dare?
None of you’ll put up a fight
How the hell do you’ll sleep at night!!
Aditi Munot is a poet from Pune. Email: aditi.munot@gmail.com
