Sharda Gupta Poet Free verse

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.

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