I try really hard to erase my sadness, wipe my heart clean of every perverted touch, carefully wash the folds of my brain and desperately scrub out the deep stain of bad memories, but it's not an easy task. When I fail to do it alone, I try to talk about it, and it's usually met with a lot of criticism. 'You're so close to your dream, you're so young, you should be more grateful.' And I am grateful. I'm one of the lucky ones. The type that gets to sleep with a special pillow, the one that cranks the AC up whenever she needs it, the person who never once knew what it feels like to starve, what it feels like to be orphaned and left alone, what it feels like to lose the person I love most. I never experienced any of life's brutalities first hand. Yet, it consumes me when I see it on the news. It takes over my body until every last one of my blood cells become heavier and heavier, my body limp and useless then.The next day, I can't bring myself to face the fresh kids in class, even if I know what the teacher is saying, my fingers just itch to light up a cigarette and turn his volume off. I can't bring myself to paint another smiling face, I'm unable to be the bright and bubbly person that everyone knows and loves me for. Unable to let my eyes meet my mother's at the dinner table, because if she asks what got me sad this time around, I know my answer will be enough to make her cry. And who wouldn't when women, men, children are treated as sacrificial lambs? A father who commited suicide after being gang raped and then blackmailed for money, Nusrat molested and burned alive for seeking justice, Abrar beaten to death in his own dorm and then his family being beaten by police for wanting answers, students killed in cold blood by drugged up drivers and faulty vehicles, 700 something children aged less than 12 raped in 2019 alone, do these lives mean nothing? And if their life isn't of any value, what good is mine or yours? Even when you're next to your mother, who loves and adores you so much, on a plane going to visit your dream school, and just by chance, you read from the paper your grandmother is reading. Two women killed in a Dhanmondi apartment. Dhanmondi, the place you were born and brought up in. The place where you took your first steps, went to school every day after your mother lovingly dressed you up, walked hand in hand with your best friend, shared infinite midnight cigarettes with your sister, where you had your first kiss and your last. You begin to feel so cold and so unbearably empty, unsure about what it even means to be a human being in Dhaka, in this world, in this life. You say a silent prayer but you don't even know which God is listening.
