Aditi Sinha Poet Free verse

Not Even in Death

“Even the worst death I can imagine feels kinder than what men might do to me.” 

I want to die —
drenched in blood,
rotting yet… dressed,
devoured in the jungle
because flesh is just flesh.

I want to die —
by suicide or by murder,
by ghost or by thunder,
by knife
or a blade’s blunder.

I want to die.
Yet I fear
a death that begins with hands,
with being forced,
with skin branded by bruise and rape.

I want to die —
but I fear screams for release,
a mouth stuffed with cloth,
a body stripped of its right to say no.

I might chase death —
crash my car,
taste rat’s poison —
yet I fear
the howls, the stares,
the cruelty of a predator in a man.

I want to see the world
after I am gone,
but I fear its disgust,
its questions
over my ruined corpse.

I want to die —
so people will finally cry for me,
but I fear my parents
bowing in shame to obscene pleas.

I want to die —
but I fear
dying simply for being a girl.

I want to love being dead as a girl,
yet I fear
being dead with remorse
for ever being a girl.

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