No.
Written on
No.
No is not a word.
Not at all.
No is a period with no
Brackets in sight.
No is a sentence
That begins and ends in itself
No is a novel
With no plot twists at the end
No is a compression of
Histories of strained Yes.
No is enough.
No you can’t touch me
No I won’t kiss you
No I will not bend
To please
You
Or anyone else.
Yes, I am a (wo)man but
No, this is my body and
I will choose when to say yes and
A No is not a Yes
Not even if you beg.
No is enough.
But sometimes No is silence-
a small shriek,
Or tear streams
Sliding down wet cheeks
Wiped off by
Shaking backs of hands
Or threats of slaps so
Sometimes No breaks down
Never to be fixed and
Sometimes No crawls out
In the middle of the night. But
Othertimes No comes back
With a knife in its hands
Because, sometimes,
No takes a while
But arrives
With a bang.
Here,
Now listen,
Make No enough,
Before it isn’t anymore.
Bengaluru #BangaloreMassMolestation #consent
YesAllWomen
Art by Fathima Nisar
Nazreen Fazal
Writer, Wife, Mother, Indian, Muslim. So many labels, one me. I write, I rant, I ramble in order to make sense of everything happening around. Join me on this journey as I share snippets of my life, going about work, my parenting wins and fails, and the murky waters that's long distance marriage.
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