By Esha Prabha
Do I Despise Men?
No. But have you seen hatred in the eye?
Hatred is forcing a life into a body that said no.
Hatred is walking away and calling it freedom.
Hatred is blaming the woman for the child she never chose,
While the man who made it never looks back.
Hatred is telling girls to cover up, to shrink, to disappear, to be quiet
And then calling her weak when she obeys.
Hatred is teaching her fear before she knows desire.
Hatred is the way keys become weapons,
How footsteps behind us turn to sirens in our heads.
"What was she wearing?" they ask about a three-year-old
In a balloon-print dress and diaper.
"Why were you there?" they demand of a schoolgirl
Who walked through the park to reach her tutor.
"What did you say to provoke him?" they question
When she spoke her mind in a corporate boardroom.
Hatred is our pain turned into entertainment,
Our trauma sliced into episodes for Sunday night viewing,
Our tears collected like trophies in headlines,
Our bodies sectioned like meat in categories online.
Hatred is the way our bodies are policies,
Legislated by hands that never held our kind of grief.
Hatred is the bruises covered in foundation.
Hatred is a father who won't believe his daughter
Because "he is such a nice guy."
Hatred is a girl who never makes it home
A mother who is blamed for not teaching her better,
A wife who disappears between dinner and dawn
And a world that forgets her name.
I don't hate men.
I hate the world that turns our bodies into battlefields
And calls casualties justice.