Content Warning: ****** Assault
I played piano for the first time in ten years;
the keys were gentle and smooth on my skin in a way that your hands never were.
I expected to feel the sting, I expected to feel the sharpness, I expected it to burn the same way that you burned me that day.
I don’t know what took me so long to sit back down and try to play but I can only imagine it’s because I thought every time I played I would think of you.
I would think of what I wore that day, what I smelled on your clothes, what I remember talking about, the song you were playing for me while I sipped on a drink that you made just for me with your own little twist.
I would think of all the details of that day until there were no memories to remember, just faint flashbacks of images and sensations.
I can’t remember the event, but my body does and I feel it everyday.
I feel the way that you devoured me and burned me and how I have felt as though I am nothing but ashes ever since then.
Yesterday I sat down and played the piano for the first time in ten years;
I played the song I had on repeat over and over for months and months after that day.
I played the song that kept me breathing at every moment when I wished that I would stop and the song that continually reminded me that I was still alive and still fighting.
I played it and I sang it as loudly as I could as though there was some way you would hear it.
I played it in a way to let myself know that you no longer have power over me, that you can no longer take something from me.
You no longer have the right to come in and steal from me.
You no longer have a part of my body.
You no longer have touched my skin.
When I see you at the grocery store I will no longer drop my items and ask somebody to walk me to my car.
When I see you on the road I will no longer take the first turn just to escape you.
I will not compulsively check my rear view mirror to make sure that you aren’t following me home.
Instead when I see you, I will look into your eyes.
I will no longer live in fear of you.
I have my own power now, and in that power, I forgive you.
May 11, 2021
May 11, 2021 at 1:59 PM UTC
To The Fall of Loneliness:
To waking up in tshirts too big for you in beds that belong to other people whose names you cannot remember, to adding a person onto your body count before adding them as a contact into your phone (if you ever do at all), to starving yourself to look your best for them, to sneaking out at midnight, to getting drunk in bars and ruining city hotel rooms, to the asthma attacks from their smoke, to the tension filled stares, to sleepless nights tangled in the arms of strangers, to trying to fill the void with whatever flesh and lust you can grab onto
To The Winter of New Beginnings:
To deleting the dating apps, to walking up behind him and seeing his galaxy blue eyes look into yours, to arcade games and flashing lights, to bookstore dates and coffee shops, to the smell of the acid in the air as you both stood in the rain laughing, to movie theaters every week, to finding every reason to see each other, to not being able to get enough of each other, to sweet forehead kisses and longing stares, to the beginning of something life changing
To The Spring of Falling In Love:
To the hour long phone calls where you talk about your day, to the pictures of you laughing and kissing and being full of contentment, to the nights falling asleep on his chest, to the coffees he would bring to your work on your hard days, to the grocery shopping dates, to the week long sleepovers, to the car rides where he would sing to you, to tracing “I love you” on his skin until you got the strength to say it, to meeting his friends and becoming part of the group, to feeling like you finally belong, to the whispers of forever
To The Summer of Heartbreak:
To the shaking hands and the shallow pit, to rereading the old texts, to sleeping in his shirt since it’s all you have left of him, to the texts you type out over and over again but never send, to accidentally taking the exit to his house day after day after day, to the nights you wake up screaming his name, to the unanswered questions, to the mascara stained pillowcase, to ordering his favorite things before realizing he’s not yours anymore, to breakdowns and miscommunications, to the weeks without eating, to the begging for him back, to the realization that he no longer cares, to crying endlessly, to the days you can’t get out of bed, to hating yourself for your mistake, to wanting to fix it, to wishing you could fill this void with whatever flesh and lust is available to grab onto
Oct 16, 2020
Oct 16, 2020 at 12:23 PM UTC
Those big blue eyes
I swear he held the entire ocean in them
Yet here I am on the shore trying to scoop the water with my trembling hands.
With my trembling hands I am trying to hold him,
I should have known I never could.
His hair,
Ashy, golden blonde, streaks gentle enough to persuade me.
His hands,
Rough and dry, yet so calming as he cupped my face to kiss me.
He traded places with the sun and he knew it.
He knew I would orbit around him.
How his words would haunt me
How his voice would follow me
Day by day, I am pulled into him.
Night by night, I am begging for him.
He looked down at me,
Hovering,
Smiling,
And in that moment, I held the ocean.
He allowed me to hold the ocean and now I am the shore.
He will crash into me and I will absorb him.
I know he will leave me
But I know that he will be back.
I know that soon enough he will crash over me
And I will absorb him yet again before he disappears.
Sep 5, 2020
Sep 5, 2020 at 11:18 PM UTC
Wild winds whistling
Timbering trees toppling
Fierce fires flaming
Mourning mountains melting
Relentless rain rushing
Hypnotic hurricanes hovering
Eroding earthquakes emerging
Overwhelmed oceans overflowing
Scorching storms stirring
Loathsome lightning lamenting
Aggravated avalanches agonizing
Panicked precipitation pounding
Ghostly gravity grieving
Chaotic cliffs corroding
Broken bones bending
Daunting darkness destroying
Without you, my world falls apart.
Feb 22, 2020
Feb 22, 2020 at 12:25 AM UTC
2 a.m.
Sitting on the rock walls
Listening to the crashing waves
Bringing back memories of you
Revisiting visions of dreams we had
Relentless roaring of the ocean
My thoughts of you still louder
Looking for shooting stars
Desperate to make a wish for you
The brightness of the moon
Reminding me of your smile
Thinking of your hands
How you would hold me
If only you had the chance to
Would you let me run to you?
Would you let me follow the roads
Until I was there with you?
I would leave this behind
I will leave the crashing waves
And chase highway signs instead
I would trade it all
I wouldn’t look back
I would run to you
I would choose you
Would you let me?
Feb 21, 2020
Feb 21, 2020 at 2:08 PM UTC
One, don’t let his hands be the first and last to touch me.
Two, please don’t leave me.
Three, help me forget him.
Four, I just need somebody.
Five, is this why you invited me over?
Six, are we really in love?
Seven, I shouldn’t be here.
Eight, why is “no” stuck in my throat.
Nine, we’ve already gone this far, why not?
Ten, let’s get this over with.
Eleven, please just go home.
Twelve, you almost make this feel real, how can I make you stay?
Thirteen, I’m a good friend for doing this.
Fourteen, I’m just trying to forget him, I’m sorry.
Fifteen, when will this end?
Sixteen, I knew this was all you wanted.
Seventeen, I owe you this, thanks for being so nice to me.
These are the thoughts that went through my head while I slept with you all.
It’s an obsession.
Counting the number of bodies who have taken over my own.
I can’t stop counting.
Somebody please make me stop counting.
Jan 11, 2020
Jan 11, 2020 at 3:36 PM UTC
You twist the blades in just the right places to make me numb.
You’ll say I asked for this and to be honest,
It wouldn’t surprise me if I did.
There are whispers stuck in my shadow except they’ve learned to call it their home.
I’ve tried to cut them off in the same way that I’ve tried to cut off the extra masses hanging from my stomach.
Maybe if I starve myself long enough, my shadow will become so small that the voices will be forced to leave.
They’ve settled within the coldness of my shadow and have learned to embrace the darkness of it.
They speak in tones that I can’t unhear
and suggest permanent plans to relieve the pain.
I keep trying to shut them out but they multiple in volume.
I’ve tried to speak truth over their lies,
But the truth is a muted and muzzled dog.
It may want to fight, but it has no power.
They say that there’s nothing I can do to get rid of them so I better learn to just listen.
I’m in agreement with them now and somehow I’m not afraid of it.
I’m not afraid of the plans that they suggest to me because maybe everybody else would be better off.
I’m not afraid of their whispers because they’ve become my only source of friendship.
Their voices echo through my mind the same way that a skipped rock will ripple the entire lake.
Drop by drop, it’s moved along.
Whisper by whisper, I’m convinced more.
They’ve taught me to settle in the coldness.
They’ve taught me to embrace the darkness.
I don’t go anywhere without my shadow now,
I don’t go anywhere without the familiar voices that have lead me home.
I’m almost gone from here, I’m almost there, and with every step, they’re guiding me.
Nov 12, 2019
Nov 12, 2019 at 4:12 PM UTC
Sometimes saying yes is easier than saying no and because of that, I can’t call myself a victim.
I didn’t technically say yes, but I technically didn’t say no.
What happened was that he leaned into me closely and he whispered in my ear what he had been planning to do to me.
The ways that he had dreamed of riping apart my body limb by limb.
How he would take his time on each and every inch of my body until I was unable to move and how it would be so intense my body would still shake for hours afterwards.
To him, it sounded like a fantasy. To me, it sounded like a massacre.
My heart started to race and my blood grew cold.
My veins filled with the blasting sound of sirens that couldn’t seem to make it past the concrete that had filled my throat.
I couldn’t say no.
I couldn’t say anything.
I doubted that my body would be left shaking because my body froze so quickly that I couldn’t move any part of it at all.
He began to tear my clothes as though it was Christmas and my body was the present under the tree that he had been waiting months to get his hands on.
Maybe I should have felt like a present, maybe it should have made me feel wanted.
But I didn’t feel wanted and I didn’t want to be a present.
I wanted to be coal. I wanted to be tossed aside and thrown out
I didn’t realize it would only be a matter of time before that happened too.
I won’t go into depth about how precisely he carried out every detail of his plan.
I won’t describe too thoroughly how his hands felt like sandpaper as he threw me around the room and how the saliva coming off of his tongue felt like acid burning my body with each and every taste that he took of me.
I won’t recount how many bite marks and bruises were left on my body the same way that skid marks are left on a road when somebody is trying to escape the scene of a crime too quickly.
What I will tell you though is that only real sandpaper was strong enough to get the feeling of his hands off of my body.
I’ll tell you that I can’t even close my eyes without seeing his lure down at me with a look that’s ignited by fires of pure desire and a hunger for stripping away last traces of innocence.
I’ll tell you that my clothes from that day were torn into shreds smaller than the pieces of shattered glass that fell to the floor as I broke every mirror inside of my house so that I wouldn’t have to look at myself again and feel the disgust of that day.
Pure, unfiltered, deathly disgust.
Enough to cause the acid in my stomach to rise into my mouth as I lean over toilet seats and sit on the shower floor with water so hot beating down on me as I pray that it melts the skin right off of my bones.
Disgust.
Disgust that I was over there. Disgust that I couldn’t see this coming.
Disgust that I had put myself in this position. Disgust that my body froze instead of deciding to fight.
I froze. I was frozen.
To call myself a victim just doesn’t seem fair.
With a body full of bricks and a throat filled with concrete I was frozen,
And I couldn’t say no.
Sep 26, 2019
Sep 26, 2019 at 4:02 PM UTC
There are some things that are too hard to say,
Too shameful to speak out loud.
So you keep them in, you stay silent.
You let them rot your organs and disassemble your bones.
You let them seep into your veins and create internal gashes that never heal or close.
They silence every other word; they destroy any sliver of hope.
They prowl around in your mind as they tell you that you’re to blame.
That this has happened before, you must put yourself in these situations.
That you wanted it.
That you asked for it.
That you were the one who went over there in the first place.
I didn’t want it.
I didn’t want that to happen to me.
People will ask why you stayed quiet.
They will ask why didn’t you go to the police.
But I’ll never tell anyone about it because there are some things that are too hard to say and too shameful to speak out loud.
Sep 11, 2019
Sep 11, 2019 at 9:45 AM UTC
People keep saying to me “you’re going to be okay”
“You’re going to be okay” “It’s going to be okay” “It will all be okay”
These words remind me of the razors that I used to tear my skin open with
The only difference is that the razors brought some sort of relief.
There’s no relief behind these words and if anything, it just makes everything worse.
They push me further back into the darkness, or maybe I let them, because if I’m far enough back,
They can’t see me.
If they can’t see me, they’ll never be disappointed in knowing that it never got better.
They say it with such assurance and some days I wish that I could believe them.
They tell me that my eyes will shine again someday, that someday I’ll smile with my teeth.
I stare in the mirror imagining what it will be like.
All I see are blackened eyes looking for an escape route
And a smile that’s been void of anything other than polite manners and a poor attempt of hiding the pain.
Sep 7, 2019
Sep 7, 2019 at 5:16 PM UTC