They Taught Me Manners, Not Consent

They taught me to keep my voice folded like a handkerchief in my pocket, clean, unused, never to be raised, never to be loud. They taught me to sit like a question that dared not be asked, to smile like a mirror that reflects everyone but never itself. They taught me how to serve tea with trembling hands, how to laugh without volume, how to cover my chest with shame stitched by mothers who once bled silently too. They told me he is your elder, he is your brother, he is your teacher, he is your God. Bow. Don't ask. Don't look. Don't speak. And when he looked too long, when his hands hovered too close, they said: “You must have misunderstood.” But I remember— how he closed the door and opened my skin. How my silence choked me more than his breath. And still, they served him sweets and blamed my skirt for the hunger in his eyes. I was taught how to be good. Not how to be safe. They taught me to be polite to predators, to smile while drowning, to whisper “I’m fine” while bleeding. They never taught me to say, “Get your hands off me.” They never taught me that my no was not a negotiation. They never told him to ask. He learned to take. I learned to endure. And the world— it kept spinning on the axis of excuses. Now, I unlearn. I unlearn the smile. I unlearn the silence. I unlearn the worship of men who do not deserve to be knelt before. This is my rebellion— not with fists, but with the word no, screamed, carved, sung,like thunder. I am not polite anymore. I am fire, and fire does not ask before it burns.