The words float down like feathers in the black
I frantically snatch them out of the air and
Smash them together like misshapen puzzle pieces
The picture is distorted
A fractured glass reality
A cataclysm of color and sharp edges
My fingers bleed to hold it
Suddenly heavy in my small hands
the weight of the story bares down
it is inescapable, but transient
too beautiful to abandon
too painful to keep holding
I squeeze my eyes together
tears forced from the edges
and beg for release from the
earthly hell of my own cowardice
the only answer I receive
a guttural voice from the black
suffer
***
I am holding back the well of emotions but they’re becoming too much. I want so badly to hurt myself just a little to feel a sense of relief…release. I am almost in tears with the desire…begging for something… (if you’re not going to kill me… help me, please…)
I know it’s my fate… penance? Be a good girl and take it, bear it with a smile – like you always do. Pretend it’s no bother and say thank you for the chance at life because so many others had theirs cut short. So thank you to those who brought me into this world, thank you to my abusers who won’t let me forget… and thank you God…
Thank you for my body, the one abused and objectified.
Thank you for my mind, the one haunted by violent memory.
Thank you for my voice, the one that shakes and stutters.
Thank you for my suffering.
Because that’s how I know…I’m alive.
***
Sat in the passengers seat of a police vehicle this week.
Get in my vehicle he said.
Close the door he said.
Did he want to rape me? Force me to blow him for my freedom? Assault me simply because he can?
Don’t panic. Whatever happens, will not be anything new…it is, after all, what you are best at.
He finally let you go… but the feeling is still there isn’t it? Lingering in the air. The frightening feeling of your own physical vulnerability. You are never safe in this world. At any time a man, an authority figure, can choose to rape you, beat you, kill you and you would have no power. Are you just realizing this? You have no power in this world….and you never will.
Accept your weakness with gratitude, right?