The Soul's Voice

It Has To

16 December was blowing up all around me. I had to google it-- The meaning of rape.

It's been three years since she died. And the juvenile got released today. The government gifted him 10k to start a new life and open a tailor shop.

But this is not about the injustice. This is not about justice. Because the word justice doesn't make much sense, really. Synonymous to revenge. You put the man responsible behind bars and there's your achievement. It doesn't change what happened. Doesn't fix the scars he left. Doesn't fix all that he broke. Achievement would be if you were Doctor Who and saved it from happening in the first place.

This is about all those girls who do not believe in violence and still have to take self defense classes. Who have to learn to use their hands as boxing gloves when all their hands have ever wanted is to play the violin.

Those girls who can't walk on the street lost in their thoughts or lost in the music blasting on their headphones because they're supposed to be alert, supposed to watch out for predators.

Those girls who cannot read the newspapers anymore because everything after page two is a repeat of yesterday's. And the day before that. And the day before that.

This is for all those girls who are afraid of falling in love because it's impossible to differentiate the prince from the beast. Unlike fairy tales, beasts look the same as the prince in the real world.

For all those girls who are taught how to survive before being taught how to live.

For all those girls who have no space in their purse but somehow have to squeeze in pepper spray.

For all those girls who do not carry pepper spray because the monsters are at their home.

Those girls who sit in the corner of a room, their lips trembling wondering how the monster in the next room could make it more horrible the next night.

For all those girls who stare at the ceiling with head laid on a tear stained pillow, through hazy eyes asking this question-- Why Me? Why Me? And not knowing who that question is addressed to. The Universe? God? Yourself?

Stop asking this question from yourself because you wouldn't be asking if you had the answer. Stop because that God, whoever he or she is, doesn't answer. Stop because the Universe has never either.

Stop because you will go deaf hearing why me w h y m e why me w h y m e like a never ending chorus droning on and on from your mind and mouth. Your voice will go hoarse. And you need your voice.

I'm not asking you to forget what happened to you, what is happening to you and what might happen to you.

I'm just saying that if you pick up a bandaid from your end and she picks one up from her end and he picks one up from his and I pick one up from mine and we place them on the skin of our planet, then it has to heal sometime, right?

It has to.

It has to.

It has to.

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