I want to be a revolutionary.
I want to bring change.
I want to extract the truth
from the chasms of
of the false.
I want to draw silver linings
to the nightmares I have every night.
I want to shed that fear
which separates me
from ultimate vitality.
I want to throw a book of light
in the faces of people
who were agonisingly ignorant of my abilities,
who dismissed and discarded
the words I had to say and the stories I possessed.
I want women to be uplifted.
I do not need your approval,
for believing in equity and justice.
I do not need your
selective empowerment.
The selective empowerment
which conveniently chooses who to give that empowerment to.
Which repeatedly makes ‘clothes’ an issue to deviate the resentful
from going against the norm.
The norm that shouldn’t even have existed in the first place.
I want to be intolerant to injustice.
I want to be a rebel against the bigotry.
I want to be the type of a woman,
that mankind sees dignity in,
and that which womankind loves and is inspired by.
Amna Mannan is a writer and a poet.
Featured image: Pariplab Chakraborty