As I stand before the mirror<\/p>\n
Ogling at my naked reflection,<\/p>\n
A sudden flush of shame<\/p>\n
Drives my vexed hands<\/p>\n
To cover my peeping breasts<\/p>\n
And my fingers touch the light brown spot<\/p>\n
Bulging out from the surface<\/p>\n
Warm and tender.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
My eyes constantly gaze<\/p>\n
At the ugly scars<\/p>\n
That were hidden by a scarf,<\/p>\n
At the extra belly fat<\/p>\n
That was always veiled<\/p>\n
And at what I tried best to hide,<\/p>\n
The pimple marks<\/p>\n
Concealed by cosmetics.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
But then I gather courage<\/p>\n
To uncover my breasts<\/p>\n
And run my fingers<\/p>\n
Across the borders of edged curves,<\/p>\n
My fingertips travel far off places,<\/p>\n
Often unvisited and remote,<\/p>\n
Undressing all my fears and insecurities.<\/p>\n
The butterflies in my stomach<\/p>\n
Fly a little higher<\/p>\n
As my soft skin sweats<\/p>\n
And I lie down,<\/p>\n
Satisfyingly tired.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I recall,<\/p>\n
How the scarf on my neck<\/p>\n
Had chocked me all the time,<\/p>\n
How the bra straps<\/p>\n
Had bruised my pale skin,<\/p>\n
How I used to put myself down<\/p>\n
Every time I longed<\/p>\n
To touch a man and be touched<\/p>\n
To kiss hard and enter a world unknown,<\/p>\n
How I cursed myself<\/p>\n
For dreaming of being cuddled.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
For I was a woman<\/p>\n
Taught to chain herself gracefully<\/p>\n
In an invisible cage.<\/p>\n
For I am a woman<\/p>\n
Who has no desires,<\/p>\n
Whose body is just a toy<\/p>\n
To satiate men<\/p>\n
And a manufacturing unit<\/p>\n
To produce “pure” kids,<\/p>\n
For if I desire<\/p>\n
I am not “pious”!<\/p>\n
Image by Jill Wellington<\/a> from Pixabay<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" For I was a woman \/ Taught to chain herself gracefully \/ In an invisible cage.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":331,"featured_media":18819,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,2153,8],"tags":[22,373,48,25,193,434],"class_list":{"0":"post-18805","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-categories","8":"category-sexuality-and-pleasure","9":"category-voices","10":"tag-body","11":"tag-misogyny","12":"tag-pleasure","13":"tag-sexualities","14":"tag-shame","15":"tag-woman"},"menu_order":412,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18805","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/331"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18805"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18805\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18821,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18805\/revisions\/18821"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18819"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18805"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18805"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18805"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}