Empathy.

By Pranjli Chaturvedi

Dear oppressors, 

I say this excruciatingly seriously, you need to learn the concept of empathy. 

When you crack jokes and laugh about our centuries of misery, tear apart our self-esteem, crush our aspirations, and our beautifully knit dreams

You dismiss how we feel, deny the pain we have, and deprive us of legal rights, bodily autonomy, and personal boundaries. 

How do you do it so easily? 

You forget medical ethics when a woman is on the chair in your clinic. 

Outside you don't spare even a dog or a 2-week-old baby. 

Really, how do you do this? 

You try to rip apart our souls from our bodies, leaving freshly cut flesh all over us, and never feel sorry. 

How do you do this? Do you not have a heart, or a soul, or just basic human decency? 

Shiver into shards all the facets of our hope. 

You've not only tattered women apart from each other, you have bisected our inner children from our bodies. 

We are disconnected from each other, but more than that, we don't remember ourselves. 

You make us forget what makes us happy, our goals, our beautifully knit dreams. 

You made us forget who we are. 

We no longer even know if we are humans. 

I applaud your skills in manipulation. 

And when we finally rebuild ourselves, try to stitch the cuts you've left on our souls and bodies, you come back. 

Do you find pleasure in annihilating us? How? How do you smile when she shivers before stepping out of her house? 

How do you do this, chico? 

Oh my love, you need therapy. 

And I wish I could cry or scream. 

I am exhausted, my guts stretching with the tears I let out, as if the tears are connected to my guts with a piece of string. 

But I no longer even want to let out my pain through my voice. 

Because it turns out sometimes it's better to express using the keyboard in your phone than to use the larynx in your throat.

And I stop here. 

But again my love, you need to learn the concept of empathy. 

By Pranjli Chaturvedi