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Doors open opportunities. They are a means for freedom...or are they? What if the doors in your life did not open?
Doors open opportunities. They are a means for freedom…or are they? What if the doors in your life did not open?
*Trigger alert: graphic domestic violence
Creak! Creak! Creak!
Protest the rickety wooden steps
Every time he makes his way to my door.
My heart thuds,
I cower, enveloped in a numb fear.
I bite into my clammy knuckles
And draw my knees up to my chest
As I hear his tread on the steps.
Mouth dry, I swallow and
Scuttle to a corner of my bed
But,
Its threadbare mattress offers little comfort!
My eyes peer at the sliver of pale light
That seeps in from under the closed door.
I hope, against hope that he shall pass by,
That, his step shall not stop at my doorstep
Tonight.
But, his shadow comes to rest there.
It is not to be!
I hear the scrape of his foot against the door,
And then the door groans open
As if keening for me, bewailing my plight.
He stands there silhouetted
Against the bleak yellow patch of light.
I whimper.
I whisper, ‘No, please…no,’ for
I know what awaits me.
I have no escape.
I am a captive of depraved lust
That shackles me to the shadows of the night.
I am a prisoner of impotent hope
That shuns me, night after night
As I suffer the snuffing of my innocence,
Time after time,
Every single time.
Night after night he lurches in
In his alcohol induced stupor,
Leering.
He comes now too, grinning malevolently.
The door bangs shut!
And like every night the sound echoes
In the deathly stillness, like an ominous peal.
I shiver.
A trickle of moonlight filters in,
Cloaking the room.
It comes to rest on the closed door.
It too cannot pass, held captive as it is like me.
I hate the closed door.
But more than that…
I hate my life behind the closed door.
*
Author’s note – Doors open opportunities. They are a means for freedom…or are they? What if the doors in your life did not open? What if they were shut, leaving you defenseless, imprisoning you?
Sadly, there are many young innocent girls who lose their childhood to such closed doors. In their lives the door does not stand for freedom or hope. Rather, it stands for confinement and defilement.
This poem is dedicated to such survivors.
First published here.
Sonal is a multiple award winning blogger and writer and the founder of a women-centric manpower search firm - www.rianplacements.com. Her first book, a volume of poetry - Islands in the stream - is slated read more...
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UP Boards Topper Prachi Nigam was trolled on social media for her facial hair; our obsession with appearance is harsh on young minds.
Prachi Nigam’s photo has been doing the rounds on social media for the right reasons. Well, scratch that- I wish the above statement were true. This 15-year-old girl should ideally be revelling in her spectacular achievement of scoring a whopping 98.05% and topping her tenth-grade boards. But oddly enough, along with her marks, it’s something else that garners more attention – her facial hair.
While the trolls are driving themselves giddy by mocking this girl who hasn’t even completed her school yet, the ones who are taking her side are going one step ahead – they are sharing her photoshopped pictures, sans the facial hair, looking nothing less than a celebrity with captions saying – “Prachi Nigam, ten years later”.
Doctors have already diagnosed her with PCOD in their comments, based on photographic evidence. While we have names for people shamed for their weight – body shaming, for their skin colour- racism, for their age- age shaming, for being a female- sexism, this category of shaming where one faces criticism for their appearance has no name. With that, it also has zero shame attached to it.
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