Safe Box

CW: Allusions to sexual assault.

For as long as I remember,
My body was a safe box.
Safe box for insecure men to keep their fragile pride and lechery.
Safe box that men could carry and call their own.
So I took short breaths behind the veil.
While my story was being by men who 'owned' me.
I whispered to the ashes of goddesses and sisters before me.
I cried for justice
I fought for it
I bled for it
I was named the sinner and I was the sin.
They named me the reason they killed.
It wasn't honourable to believe in my wants and needs.
I was diminished from a living and breathing entity with the rage and fire to a mere vessel, an object to trade and share.
It was indeed my body but I have no right over it.
Do I?

Written by Anushka Hemnani
Image credit to Anushka Hemnani
Published Dec 9, 2022