"rating" poems - Hello Poetry

During one of my recent internet travels, I came across a picture of a “minor”, posing with tinted lips and exposed ******* What got my eyes pinned were the thousand number of likes by virtually hooting “boys” and comments by other group of “gentlemen” telling her how to dress. HUMILITY: I have been asked to repeat the word too many times to recall what it means: the man on the subway cat-called and accused me of showing too much skin but instead of fighting back, I smiled because girls ought to be nice. I have been taught to survive by using my body as a swiss army knife, and I convince myself that there is protection in being polite. H-U-M-I-I am forgetting the rest. The smoke curled up from between his fingers and he blew out toxic, blurring my vision. I gasped and wheezed but I held my sneeze, I cannot slap him across his face. HUMILITY. So, I just pretended to cough, hoping he’ll feel ashamed. I have been trained to flutter my eyelash, clench my jaw at a whiplash and business school boys, who manifest success by refusing to take “NO” for an answer. And for every time his prying eyes scan down by body, as if rating my inexperienced assets on a scale of one to five, and every time his touch trails a chill down my spine, I wonder: Male kindness is so alien to us; we confuse it with seduction every time. HUMILITY: the quality of having a low view of one’s importance but, I fail to understand when did it become synonymous to diffidence; there is a subtle difference between papercuts and shattered integrity, holding hands and chaining souls, building houses and creating homes, humiliation rotting down to bones and humility. HUMILITY, have you spelled it too many times to know what it looks like?

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Sep 15, 2014

Sep 15, 2014 at 9:59 AM UTC

cheryl-mukherji

Humility

During one of my recent internet travels, I came across a picture of a “minor”, posing with tinted lips and exposed ******* What got my eyes pinned were the thousand number of likes by virtually hooting “boys” and comments by other group of “gentlemen” telling her how to dress. HUMILITY: I have been asked to repeat the word too many times to recall what it means: the man on the subway cat-called and accused me of showing too much skin but instead of fighting back, I smiled because girls ought to be nice. I have been taught to survive by using my body as a swiss army knife, and I convince myself that there is protection in being polite. H-U-M-I-I am forgetting the rest. The smoke curled up from between his fingers and he blew out toxic, blurring my vision. I gasped and wheezed but I held my sneeze, I cannot slap him across his face. HUMILITY. So, I just pretended to cough, hoping he’ll feel ashamed. I have been trained to flutter my eyelash, clench my jaw at a whiplash and business school boys, who manifest success by refusing to take “NO” for an answer. And for every time his prying eyes scan down by body, as if rating my inexperienced assets on a scale of one to five, and every time his touch trails a chill down my spine, I wonder: Male kindness is so alien to us; we confuse it with seduction every time. HUMILITY: the quality of having a low view of one’s importance but, I fail to understand when did it become synonymous to diffidence; there is a subtle difference between papercuts and shattered integrity, holding hands and chaining souls, building houses and creating homes, humiliation rotting down to bones and humility. HUMILITY, have you spelled it too many times to know what it looks like?