Not Yours

Not Yours

Lay down your weapons,

 Your swords,

Your axes and stones

And leave from civilization’s open door.

Don’t throw your holly books

Holly verses

And holly rules at me anymore.

I’m not your slave.

I won’t dance on that same old song.

Put your hands down

And seal those preaching lips,

Spare me all the advice you don’t follow,

All the rules you always break

And the trials you hold with no judges,

Or juries

Or a law.

Don’t wait for another story, Shehrayar

On the night one hundred thousand, I found out,

That your hangman is a statue,

And his sword is of blunt tin.

Kept at sight to make me stay

And entertain.

I’m wide awake now

An eternity of silence has come to an end.

 I will take off the dress of shame,

Purity and death you’ve put on me

And crush with my bare feet,

All the presents with my freedom you purchased me.

Genitals, is all you see of me, you blind fool!

I am human,

Train your ears, your eyes and lips on this truth.

I am human,

Just like you,

and sometimes even better than you,

You, who led all the wars,

To gain nothing but losses,

You, who climbed to the top,

To find yourself crawling in dirt

You, who owned the world,

To find yourself begging for some love

You, who satisfied all your desires,

To find yourself filled with emptiness

You, who stuffed your God with humanity’s blood,

To find yourself dying of loneliness and guilt

You, the wretched slave of darkness,

You, haunted by the shame of a weakness,

You hide behind your bodily strength.

You, the blind and deaf servant of illusions

You take for the ultimate truth.

You, oh poor you!

I’m telling you once for all:

My freedom is mine

Not the tool to achieve yours.

My choices are mine,

Even if they don’t comply with your rules

My future is mine,

And not an extension of yours

And my body,

Yes, my body,

Is mine,

Not your blood-thirsty idols',

Not your cannibal tribe's

And not yours.

As a Female-IIX

A Curse!

I hold a Masters degree and a PhD degree in Politics and Public Relations. I have a lucrative job that provides me with enough money to have everything I need. I drive a fancy car and have a fancy house. Yet, if I walk down a street alone, men stare at me and verbally harass me. With their luscious looks, they strip me off my clothes and rape me.

I thought if I get married and wear a wedding ring, men may stop acting like that with me. I bought a very big ring so that it is going to be noticeable and eye-catching. To my surprise, the ring changed nothing and men still behave in the same way.

I thought if I am with my husband, men will not dare to stare at me anymore. This is a patriarchal society after all. Ironically, I still get stared at; especially by men who are accompanied by their wives.

If you are a man who is reading this, you’ll probably be thinking that I don’t wear decent clothes, that’s the reason why men stare at me like that. Huh! What a good excuse men use to harass women and even rape them! But no, you are wrong! You may be surprised to know that I actually wear very decent clothes; never anything tight, or short or sheer. It has nothing to do with men. I just respect my body enough not to expose it in that disgraceful way.

I sometimes get phone calls from men who want to have fun and spend some “lovely time” on the phone with a girl. I yell at them and ask them to never call again, but they never listen to me and keep calling until they hear the voice of a man answering my phone.

I aspire to become an MP in the future, and I work towards that, but I think even then, I will not be able to escape any of the problems I face as a woman every day. A friend of mine is already an MP. She is a widow and in her fifties. A man one day called her and said that he wanted to meet her and “talk” to her. My friend has given up on men long time ago and she’s faithful to the memory of her husband whom she loved very much. When she received that phone call, surprisingly, she found herself yelling “Don’t dare to call me ever again, otherwise I’m going to tell my brothers.” She said that she could believe that after all these years and after being an MP, she still felt like she had to use a man as a way to threaten someone who was disturbing her. However, I don’t really blame her for reacting in that way. No matter how many achievement we make in this life and how many high posts we fill, the curse of being a woman is always going to be following us and men are always going to give themselves the right to verbally or physically harass us. All this for one reason: Being a women.