I Need No Name

I leap

leap out of my body

hair on fire

eyes flaming with the fury

of a thousand years

dagger in my hand

red-hot

And I burn

I burn every fence

every wall

every shackle

every muzzle

I burn, and watch them

crumble into ash and dust

I hack

I hack at every tongue

every hand

every eye

I chop them all, and watch

as they leak blood

And I bathe

I bathe in ash and dust

and congealed blood

in spaces that no longer

grope me

in words that no longer

bend my head

in catcalls that no longer

deafen me

in gazes that no longer

undress me

I bask

I bask in the sound

of my words tumbling free

in the sound of my feet

clattering off to places it dreamt of

in the sound of my hands

stomping on surfaces it yearned for

               

And I step back

into my body

moment of madness

evaporating

in the heat of my boiling blood

and slowly

I burn my silence

I hack at my fear

I bathe in my euphoria

I bask in my voice

I strip down to the marrow

of my bones
I bleed

I yell

I am

---

Again, anger fuels this. Immediate inspiration drawn from a senior talking about her experiences with gendered rules on occupying public spaces in a college, where she's attending a fest, and an incident in another academic institution where first-year students misbehaved with a female student until seniors intervened. The powers-that-be dismissed the girl's account as a fabrication, and the senior students now have a ragging case foisted upon them.