Photo courtesy of Tribune India

 

at her school,

it’s not only the muscular jock

that makes rape sound like a shaggy-dog story

it’s also the averagely built skinny man who camouflages in feminism

flexing his wit, runs it like a blood sport

there are many ways to be an ignorant bloke;

a fellow buddy review praising your joke, is one of them

 

at her home,

you can spot strange little tones of sexism,

when her father whispers to his woman to cook the food for his friends

then punishes her for not cooking it the way he likes

 

at the bar, you can spot the nerd sitting next to her table,

making a criminal joke sound like a hysterical joke

wanting to show other men that he belongs to the arrogant wolfpack,

thinking that she would think he is manly and irresistible

 

in the bus amidst the crowd,

a strange man’s hand slithers like a snake

up her skirt and takes a bite –

it was her first day at a new job,

the rare instance of a stout and intimidating mother who detects,

takes her side, and tramples the offender’s legs, is a stroke of luck

to the girl who now believes her life is filled with misfortunes

and regrettable outfit choices

 

she is victimized by rape jokes that run as a blood sport

humiliated in newsletters that the mailman slides at each door

and the man she likes now,

looks at her facebook profile like it’s a victim’s profile

 

she is a survivor

trauma lingers like her friend, in the aftermath of a sexual assault

no one dares to ask her how she felt

treating a victim with dignity is a fact that, no education taught

living in survivor’s guilt, disgusted by her own body

she lives among blood thirsty parasites,

who only see her as a mere object

surrounded by other survivors labelled as victims in alleyways

chained to society’s humiliation,

punctured tongues to hold the violent stories in-

it’s a shame how the world works,

when the man who entertains rape jokes is the kick off for abuse,

from verbal to physical as if it’s some sort of revolution

 

it’s a neverending cycle of female victims in retaliation –

 

decades worth of articles about toxic masculinity,

oral presentations about violence against women

and years’ worth of conversation therapy to women’s shelters

but the root cause was never solved

because these men i talk of, they like to hound women

and run rape jokes as a blood sport