Orange Blossoms by My Bedside

Evening has fallen. / I sit in the corner of my solitude / I have grown fond of the stillness of the night / My head reaches toward the sky, / Gazing at the stars, / Embracing the Milky Way, / That is how it all began.

I didn't draw the curtains. In fact, I haven't even put curtains on some of the windows; even when alone, I refused to shut out the moon's face as it smiles upon the night. I peeled an orange, its scent filling the room, sliced it and placed it by my bedside. Right next to it, a glass stained in crimson, and inside a candleholder carved from an olive tree, I arranged green-apple scented candles. I lit them, and simply stared at the moonlight. I reflected. Tonight, I thought of all the women who have fallen silent, but most of all, I thought of the ones who speak—for it is when they speak that the real outcry begins, and it is when they speak that the silent majority falls completely quiet.

For years, I have read headlines and written pieces about the systematic shattering and wounding of women’s bodies and souls. Then, these reports multiplied so rapidly that I could no longer keep pace with them. The very agonies I poured into musical notes, the very outcries I articulated through songs, were being swiftly erased from our collective memory. I felt like a liar standing before people. I questioned my own sanity, falling into deep self-doubt, yet I knew the truth; I had seen it with my own eyes and felt it with my heart—how could I ever forget? And it wouldn't stop. There were too many who didn't want it to stop. Yet as their numbers grew, the voices of women multiplied too. Step by step, street by street, wave by wave... everywhere, they were shouting: "We are not afraid of you!" We are not afraid! We are not afraid of you.

If everything has a reason, what is the reason for this darkness? Those of you who raise your sons telling them to "show off their manhood", who coddle them while beating your daughters, who raise the girl as a servant and the boy as a "prince" or a "king"—do you carry no blame at all? Until the members of the herd become true individuals of a society, regardless of gender, it seems this narrative will continue. They achieved this over centuries. By making the roles assigned to women sacred—mother, older sister, wife, sibling—they caged her within the "sacred family", preventing her from thinking freely and independently. A child in her father's house, a possession in her husband's.

In a patriarchal order, women condemned to live by its rules are people abandoned to a "destiny" they are forbidden to complain about. Do not look far afield wondering who these women are. For these women are everywhere: our mothers, our neighbours, our teachers, the shop assistant at the grocer’s, the worker in the textile factory, and so many others.

We all know by now that this is a historical and class-based issue. The laws written and maintained by men shape women to suppress them economically and sociologically, denying them equality and fundamental human rights. And we know, too, that this is why prisoners of conscience receive harsher sentences than rapists, while the laws practically clear abusers and rapists of guilt. Then, day after day, the headlines roll in, shared today and forgotten tomorrow.

They say these things wouldn't happen if women ruled the world. But what of the crises of masculinity? How men choke within this system, how they are unable to show affection, how they share a pillow and a bed for a lifetime with women they do not love, living with the ghosts of their dead fathers. Do we not need to question these things too? There is no solitary salvation!

While these thoughts drifted through my mind, the scent of orange filled the room, and the moonlight stood directly before me. Did you know? Oranges are said to reflect kindness, loyalty, and generosity. In Western history, they even represent happiness and abundance. Just like women... Yes! I say "women" once more; those women you ignore, those to whom you remain deaf, the ones with whom you supposedly "share" life. The women you believe you own the moment you touch them, whose affection you claim as property. The ones you scan from head to toe when they apply for a job, whom you violate with your eyes on the street; the ones you fall in love with the moment they speak a few words—emptying the very meaning of love—and the ones you slaughter every single day because of it.

My night approaches the morning, the moon surrenders its heart to the sun, a hicaz melody plays, and the scent of orange slices blends into the faces of women—the faces of the six women slaughtered across the world every single hour.

Flowers blossom in one corner of the earth, leaves fall to the ground in another; lives pass by, all the birds fall silent, the seasons shift, yet today, only the women are speaking. I hear their voices. You must hear them too. Do not plug your ears, do not cover it up, do not hide or conceal it... the women are speaking. Open your hearts and speak out too; speak of this endless brutality. Do not turn your face away; love the sun, but never forget the magnificent presence of the moon.