(again & again & again)

Manifesto:
I refuse to be the exotic figure of beauty in your colonist fantasy
I refuse to be the victim you want to pity
I refuse to be the wounded psyche, your pathological specimen,
I refuse to be your salvage project, your empowerment industry
1/5

I refuse your we-will-give-you-a-voice, we-shall-set-you-free declarations
I refuse your glib talk on peace
I refuse your self-help counselling lectures,
your motivational talks
I refuse to be a fossil in your archive
I refuse to be your respondent, your footnote
2/5

I refuse to satiate your colonial notion of hospitality
I refuse to entertain you
I refuse to narrate to you what loss feels like,
how love bleeds and statistics don’t
I refuse to tell you how we imagine our liberation
I refuse you entry into the territory of my memory,
3/5

my only homeland.

I refuse your scrutinising the anatomy of my resilient self,
I refuse you penetrating into my imagination
I refuse your surveys
I refuse you permeating through my skin

I refuse decipherability to you
I shall remain forever indecipherable
4/5

And your rotten stereo sounds will play –
But what do ‘Kashmiris’ want?
All over again.
...
Prologue and Coda:

I do not protest. I reject you.
5/5 https://cafedissensus.com/2017/02/20/recorded-rotten-stereo-sounds-a-rape-survivors-testimonial/