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.

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.

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.

I find myself straightening out the welcome mat and making sure the door is unlocked
Dusting the stairs and changing the sheets on the bed everyday
Painting the walls fresh in dark green in hopes that it feels safe for you to come home to
I've always been told to prepare for the things I want and I swear we'll be closer one day
Tracing each others fingertips with our lips and learning the nuances of our voices woven together
We could be like oceans falling into each other and scientists can argue where we begin and end
Tie little memories you have of me to your feet like shadows that engulf the entire room at night
You can be my sun and I'll be your moon waiting to be eclipsed with you
Forgive me when I stumble over my words I just want to tell you everything
I know it will all come out too fast I hope you understand
While I will continue to shake violently I'm ok now I can live with this
The door is unlocked and I'll leave the lights on for you
You're free to come and go as you please as long as you know you can call this home
We can stay up all night holding cups of coffee just to enjoy the smell
I think I could start to associate some other feeling with it if I tried
When it starts to rain I hope this is the first place you think of even if you can't arrive just yet
Just picture those lights and know you can come inside when you're ready
*~W.C.

Forgive me for being so disoriented, everything is crashing over my head and building up pressure that is begging to be released.
The ropes around my wrist are gone but the gashes they left behind are still bleeding.
I still feel helplessly bound to you. I still feel just as captive.
The voices from the cave are still echoing in my mind and despite how far I swim into the sea they rise above the roaring of the waves.
The water is freezing my bones but it isn’t nearly as cold as living in your lies.
You brought me to a land made of ice and shadows and you convinced me to call it my home.
Now I’m running away the best that I can.
I keep telling myself that eventually the current has to meet the shoreline but the waves keep rising up and if I’m honest, I’m tempted to let them take me under.
My choice is having my lungs cleansed by the water or having them drown in your deceit.
The cave is miles behind me so why does it feel like I could be pulled back in at any moment?
Why does it feel like you’re chasing me with stronger chains to bind me by?
I’m getting tired of wading and the voices keep growing louder.
I may be frozen but I will never be numb enough to escape the memories of you.
Let the waves overtake me.
Let the current force me under.
Let the waters have their way with me.
Let me finally find peace.

The lighting of the parking lot that night should have told me everything I needed to know about our fate.
The grass stains never came out of my favorite jeans from our picnic at the park which I guess I’m thankful for because I don’t need to be reminded of the way they came unbuttoned so easily that summer.
The scent of your cigarettes still linger on my sweatshirt and after four years, it’s probably time that I either wash it or throw it away.
The scent hasn’t spread to the rest of my clothes yet but somehow they seem just as tainted.
Have I told you that I only adventure during fall and winter now?
I can’t venture out in the summer without seeing the shade of your eyes in the sky and I’ve learned to despise the sun for that.
My walls and ceilings still release the sound of your laugh sometimes and it’s in those moments that I miss you the most.
I can’t wait for the day that they finally detox from the sound and are set free from the memories but I can understand why they’d want to hold onto it a little bit longer.
The spraypaint murals downtown are still painted over by your goofy grin in my mind and that gas station on the corner is still haunted with burning desire.
There isn’t much I can do to escape your ghost, but I swear to you that I’m trying.

She tells me to write it out until I heal
But how can I heal when writing it out just causes retraumatization?
Maybe we should work on coping skills before we get to this point.
No doubt she’ll ask me how I felt when writing it and how I coped with those emotions.
I’ll tell her that it made me ***** and so I started drinking alcohol so that I had something else to blame the sickness on.
She’ll probably tell me that it’s an unhealthy coping mechanism and that I need to allow myself to feel all of those feelings that come up
And I’ll tell her that if she felt the roughness of your hands on her,
She’d drink to forget too.