Clean by Addhaya Anil

My father announced his passing years ago, yet some days I feel like I will crawl out of my own body, with my bones cracking from places I never thought of. With that, also comes this feeling that he would come unannounced and ask me to wake up at four in the morning. Some days I wake up earlier than usual to screams at the back of my head. Loud enough to give me palpitations.

It has been almost two decades now, but it makes me wonder how much I am allowed to think out loud, and say even less than that, maybe? There is a possibility that I would end up all curled up in the corner of my bed. Probably that is the most eerie thing about power. It lives with you. Even while the person who exercised the power is gone, it survives and grows with you.

However, on the external side of things, a lot seems unmoved. The body remembers though. Everything in quiet detail. What a farcical place to be in!

In my family, my father invariably held more power over the women. Whatever he wanted, it was done the way he liked it. We ensured that: My mother, my sisters, and I. What it took was one misstep for things to erupt into pandemonium. It found our backs, hands, and bare bodies. It found us naked in the face of violence. The anticipation of it happening was always there. I knew the structure of how it would go.

That’s when I knew what he held in lots, but we, in bits and pieces.

My friend once said that you could gauge a man’s anger with the sound of their feet, how they walk, if they halt or not. I always knew when my father entered the house. The same sound determined what pretense I had to put up.

For a good while, I wished for this terror to leave me behind but it followed me everywhere. There was no place that I didn’t see its shadow hovering on my shoulders. Inside the house, outside it as well. There wasn’t a middle place built for me to close my eyes in relief or peace. However, wishing for it meant having space for imagination, something I couldn’t afford to do. So, it remained the same, but the faces changed over and over again.

During my early teenage years, I developed this understanding that if I have to save myself from the ogling and uncalled for behaviour then I must learn to bend. With that, I also understood the need of pacing up while walking. So, I walked straight with my head bent and eyes fixed on my way home. I even figured out shortcuts that were never there in the first place. You may wonder why.

I was followed by not one, not five, but over ten boys from my class.

In our school, girls left ten minutes before the boys as if it was going to save us from some kind of menace they saw coming before we did. Even within that small time frame, they caught me every time, no matter the route I took. They followed me, called me names, waited for me, and some even peddled till my house.

I spent years believing there was something inherently wrong with me. Maybe it was the way I dressed or the way I pleated my hair or maybe the way I walked. I kept blaming myself that if the boys are following me, then it must be because I have done something. Maybe I have lured them, given them signals because after all, that’s what we are taught, right, that we are to blame.

Truthfully, every time I think of power and how it has manifested itself in my life, I think of my father, and of the many men who imposed themselves upon my life over the years.

It still frightens me. It makes me question how much harm something has to cause you, how much pain you have to go through till you come up with words like, ‘It was my fault, I guess.’

It’s weirdly disgusting to see what power makes of young boys and men. They are fed the idea that it is okay to overpower a woman, that it is okay to catcall, that it is okay to show you are superior. Not just with words but through their loud actions. Loud for others to witness but never enough to be called out for.

This constant rage makes me violent in my thoughts. It makes it difficult for me to have conversations with men. It brings me closer to the pool of my own tears before I can argue. Moreover, all of this makes me an extremely difficult person to love. It makes me feel apologetic to the partner I will ever have in my life. That, here I am bare, barely making through conversations. Apologies that you won’t be able to ever have an argument without having to witness me cry.

I am still unsure of how much vulnerability is allowed in a world that asks people to hide such stories. There is so much uncertainty as to how much penning it down will help, but surely, it is an act of resistance for me. It is also an act of having a conversation with myself, that I can live with my body without having to let go of the anxiety that comes with it.