That’s all it takes to make a woman quiet,
to silence her.

A slap, a word, a scream, an eye
and perhaps a kiss too.

But there’s a different story for my mother.
For the three words, she spoke
while her heart was struggling to keep alive,
She was given a slap.

A slap whose loudness,
I still hear somedays
when I go to bed and when my mother wakes up.

I think she has been silent for too long
to even count now.
So, I pretend I never heard her speak in the first place.

But there is a different story for my sister.
For her Thumbelina sized request,
she was shouted on like Lady Tremaine did.

In a voice so loud that
It was all she could hear for years to come by.

So, while hearing that, she forgot to speak.
She did not know who to search for
when your ‘Prince Charming’ becomes your ‘Wicked Step-Mother’.

But there is a different story for her.
For tears in her eyes
and the words that were just a zygote in her mouth’s womb,
she got a stare.

A stare, that froze her down
and her words had to go through a miscarriage

So, she went through an unplanned abortion
that made her mouth infertile.

But there’s a different story for her.
However, somehow, they are all the same.

Because that’s all it takes to make a woman quiet,
to silence her.

A slap, a word, a scream, an eye
and perhaps a kiss too.