11-13-2017, 08:49 PM
(As a final task before my last counseling session, my therapist has asked me to share my story in an open forum ─ either publicly or through writing. Please no critiques.)
I can only remember it in flashes. I suppose that deep down I might remember more than just brief instances of panic and vulnerability... of outright despair, but this is the easier way, isn't it? To lock it all away. To convince myself that maybe ─ just maybe ─ it had all been in my head, a nightmare of epic, unfathomable proportions. But no, the nightmares are what follow the despair. They wake me up in the middle of the night, hot fingers around my neck and a pounding (throbbing) in my head that never seems to cease.
No ─ I would have been lucky, had it been only a nightmare.
Flash.
You're handing me a warm beer, even though I've told you meekly that I'm a rum girl and always have been. I'm not as outspoken as I will be in the future. I take the sticky plastic cup from you, offer you quiet laughter in hopes that my initial denial had not offended you. You tell me that you're my friend's uncle, that you've traveled all this way just to see her graduate. I nod, disinterested, already searching for a way out of this conversation. I see my friend ─ your niece ─ and excuse myself quickly, despite your calls for me to stay, drink a little. I dump the beer out behind the garage. I tell her that I'm getting bad vibes from you. She tells me everyone does.
Flash.
The fire is hot and overwhelming against my already flushed face. I feel like I've found my way onto a sinking ship as the earth tilts beneath me. Ryan (I've come to the party for him, to tell him how I feel, to tell him what I have been enduring in my current relationship, but my mouth won't listen and my head is swimming, swimming, swimming...) grabs me gently by the waist and pulls me further from the flames. I follow him, using his arm for support. He pulls me behind the garage and I think about the beer I had dumped out earlier as he holds my tousled hair back and I purge my stomach of the poison I have ingested. He says he's going to get me a cold washcloth and some water. I beg for him not to go.
Flash.
I'm far from the garage, across a field, and the fire is so far away now. I can see it when I turn my head to the side in the wet grass. How did I get here? I try to ask, but the words don't come. They can't. My mouth is covered. There's a weight across my throat, my chest, my ribs. I try to make any noise at all, but I inhale sharply and only gurgle. Panic sets in. It's mixed with confusion and rum and darkness. It grows in my chest even when my breath won't.
Flash.
You stink like beer and stale cigarettes. Your unwelcome hands are ripping at my dress. I try to kick, frantic, out of focus... you're too heavy (why haven't I worked out more?). Too heavy. Too heavy. I gasp for air and finally find it as your forearm leaves my throat and I scream, but my cries are drowning beneath the waves of party music, beneath your hand that has returned to clasp sharply over my mouth. I can feel the wet grass beneath my butt as my favorite red panties are ripped away, the greedy way your fingers grope for places you've not been invited to.
Flash.
I'm sobbing. They're angry tears because it's the only emotion I can feel as you force yourself into me. I can't breathe beneath the weight of you, beneath the mask you've created with your hand. I open my mouth wide and your fingers fall in ─ ahh, yes, suck them, bitch, you whisper hot in my ear and I latch onto them with my teeth as hard as I can.
Flash.
FUCKING CUNT, you're hissing in my ear. You leave your blood behind in my mouth and I spit it at you, my legs and arms finally remembering to kick, fight, scratch, survive. Later, I will be pleased to know that you've nearly lost a finger. That I have almost bitten it off in my drunken panic. If only I had. I groan loudly and the sound sparks a violent reaction in you ─ a need to not be caught. Your fist collides with my chin, my nose, and suddenly my own blood is mixed with yours.
Flash.
I'm on my stomach. I taste dirt and blood and grass. Your hand pushes my head further into the dirt and you're still too heavy for me to move, to shake you off. You threaten to suffocate me. I stop fighting. I stop fighting. I stop fighting (why? why? why?).
Flash.
Ryan has found me in the dark. He's frantic as he holds me to his chest, pulling my dress back over me. I can't cry. I'm empty. So empty. Empty even when the police arrive. Empty even when I explain what happened. Empty when they ask me so why did you drink so much?
Flash.
Still empty, days later, when my fiancee grabs the back of my neck and slams my face against his bedroom door frame. It's all my fault, he tells me, that I've been dirtied by another man. The stars are white and hot across my eyes, my head, and it knocks the emptiness from me. I'm angry again ─ so angry, so ashamed ─ and I turn on him with fire in my eyes as blood runs down my face. I ball my hands into fists, nails drawing blood from my palms, and I swing. I swing. And I swing.
Flash.
I haven't stopped swinging.
you're so down to earth & i'm up in the stars
so show me the sea & i'll take you to mars
