Like a phoenix, she rose from the ashes #MeToo

She was sweet sixteen

When her friend’s brother
Who was himself eighteen

Wanted to be her ‘boyfriend’
More, like, her lover,

All he wanted to do

Was feel her up 
And have his way with her
Then why on earth
Did he talk of marriage
Confusing her?

She who was naïve,

What they would call an 'innocent’
Unaware of his evil intent

Was fooled into thinking
The world was all sunshine 
And tread where angels feared to
This led to her decline

She felt she had shamed herself

By letting him touch her

Especially, when after a point
He repulsed her

Even after he'd moved on
And started dating an older woman
He made out with her
Because she let him
Till date, she asks herself,
"Oh, why oh why? Didn't I stop him?'

They had never discussed anything
This made her feel sick
It's so important to talk
Why don't boys understand this?

When the #MeToo campaign
Unearthed stories of abuse
Her own pain was tight like a noose
Until then, she had lost her voice

Stopped talking to boys
Felt awkward around men
The hashtag #MeToo seemed right
To describe her plight

It was much later
That she read about
'Consent', 
She realized that a man
Cannot just force himself on his wife
Or 'girlfriend'
It takes two willing minds
And bodies to participate
In what's certainly more
Than a physical act
If not for the man,
Definitely for the woman.
A woman must speak up
And say NO
Else she will be taken for granted
Her silence taken for assent
And her character assassinated

While society speculated
Was it peer pressure?

To belong to the ‘in’ crowd

Since all her ‘friends’

Had boyfriends at that age?

Or was she stubborn

And didn’t want to admit

That she had made

A monumental mistake

Or did she believe

That rotten as it was

Their ‘relationship’

Would go on that way

Forever and a day…

She became the object of

Lustful eyes, scorn, derision

And labeled a 'bad girl'

One that she most certainly 

Didn't deserve

And at that moment

Everything 'alive' in her 

Was squashed to dust

Her spirit cruelly crushed by the world

In time she rose, 

Like a phoenix, from the ashes

And found her place

Among the very men and women

Who brought her disgrace