Daily Times

“It’s no secret. It’s nothing to hide. Our suppressed society has raised a bunch of dark and twisted minds. Our voices combined is a roar.”

#MeToo

While rummaging through my toolbox of daunting memories last night, I almost posted a “Me, too” but changed my mind. “I’ve never really been brutally raped or savagely violated,” I told myself. “Nothing bad ever happened to me. I can consider myself lucky.” Well, I spent the entire day thinking, and towards the end with a certain sort of weight almost overpowering all the leftover physical strength inside of me, my legs started to tremble and I caught myself bursting into tears. A terrified 25-year-old now today, I feel like it’s time to share my story.

I had forgotten a couple of things.

I forgot about the time, in an old bookshop, in Lahore. I was 12 years old, anxiously waiting in an empty line to get my hands on my favorite Smash Hits’ magazine, escorted by a helper in the store. This was the first time a man casually decided to run his hands down my pants, trying to pry his fingers through my zipper, in an attempt to pop it open. I was confused. Three or four failed attempts, till my dad came in, calling out my name through the tattered pages on the shelves. Just in the nick of time.

I kept my mouth shut and never spoke about the horrific things this man was trying to do. His smile was sinister, but of course, I was young.

I forgot about the time, in a parking lot in Defence. I was 13 years old when my parents had left me in the back seat of the car, unguarded, and a man caught my attention through the crystal-clear glass of his front seat right across me, openly masturbating, looking me in the eye as he ejaculated.

I forgot about the time, in an empty bathroom of a crowded café. Just about the same age, I had made my way to the sink minding about my business, as a man sweeping the floors approached his demeanor towards me. While he helped me twist open the knob on the tap, he started palming my chest with his rough, sweaty hands.

I forgot about the time in my life I was drugged out while dancing in London, probably with the intent of rape. I was lucky enough to be found safe and passed out on the bathroom floor, in the presence of people I was happy to know.

I forgot about the time at my second job when I couldn’t even express how filthy I felt each time a father-figure type/an older man that I looked up to, would say something out of line, leer at me, smirk, or do other graphic gestures while ogling me, watching me as though I was there to entertain him and please him.

I keep forgetting about the times there’s the endless stream of male genitalia hanging around in my DMs every other day, along with uninvited comments and requests to send an unsolicited photo or video of my private parts to them. And this only scratches the surface of it all.

I keep forgetting about the times there is always someone that says that I deserve it for revealing too much skin on my arms while I’m wearing a fancy shirt, or talking friendly to a male colleague at work or for the tattoo I got made on my trip abroad and calls me a slut and a whore whenever they’ve wanted to.

I keep forgetting about the times I witness or hear about the myriad accounts of rape and sexual abuse breaking headlines on TV and in the news, girls naked and bruised, passed out on the sides of a secluded alleyway or in the gutter, their clothes ripped to shreds in a pile by their sides, and how much it tears me.

Last but not least, because I saved my personal-worst for last, what I’ll never forget is the time I looked into the familiar eyes of a stranger and allowed his presence to seep into every chord of my being, while he disemboweled the spaces between my limbs and unlocked his way to the beating cracks of my trembling profanity, comforting me like an angel, disallowed to leave my side, but doing the very mundane in fact. As he discarded me out of his life I lay abandoned in the specks of dirt that he so deeply etched into my skin. This is how I had always heard angels turned into demons. But, “all of this is so common, so humdrum, it wasn’t even worth remembering. This happens a lot.”

Yes. I know.

I get goosebumps from the thoughts every time. It is hard to live with something so deep in your mind that at times you can not realize where you are or what age/year you’re in. There is a young, little girl in every piece of me that every man has taken away while I was innocently forced to watch, touch, and feel what they made me feel. As much as my childhood was beautiful, my last and darkest memories remain a ‘lie,’ my most painful ever, strengthening the truth behind my being, refining the strength in my womanhood.

My heart goes out to all the women who have delved in their secrets, so much so that they have shaped into the fighters and believers that they are today, as hard as it is to understand, amidst those years of pain, loss and confusion.

Say no to this global epidemic. We all stand together in solidarity.

Me, Too.