The Other Option by Antonia Alexandra Klimenko | Poems Rethabile Likes
The Other Option
by Antonia Alexandra Klimenko
No
No thank you No thank you No thank you!
Just no
Just not feeling it
Just not
not not not
no No! NO!!
What part of no DON'T you understand?
N O
Please remove your hand
Please remove your hand
No
None of that None Nada
Nada thing Nothing
Silence The Unspoken The Refusal
Not the UN-Lived
Not the i couldn't care less
Not the silence of indifference or recusal
nor the conspiracy of consent
Not the absence of yes
But no Just no
No to submission
No is not an omission
an act of contrition
Yes is not my religion
I don't need your permission
I will not submi
I will not commit
to yes
I confess I am human
a work of fiction
a contradiction
No does not make me less
I say no to yes
Just yes to no
No to the enslavery of yes
the submissive acceptance
the demand and expectation
the sublimation of truth and desire
I've burned those bridges
I set my own house on fire
and I escaped
I've been beaten kidnapped raped
The rapists the manipulators the liars
the mistakes…they are now erased
all in my head of course (let's call it a gift… OK?)
I will not be led down that path anymore
I will impeach and abort the shoulds and what ifs
It wasn't supposed to happen like this
I am the protest the resistance the empowerment
of all the burning stars in the sky you CANNOT see
I am the singing meteor
ghosting all the no-shows
repeat after me repeat after me
I am not past tense
I am the nonsense of sense
I am just left of right
I won't take back the night
I am the Visibly invisible
I am the other option
I am the dark the shines
the light
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