Hollow… I follow each day grasping to the threads of survival, I can breathe and I can eat I am alive but I am only just that. There is no fire that drives these bones there is no heat for this soul, I am nothing with you.

To leave, a dream, to walk away from all this and be free but it’s not real is it it’s not so easy after all. I am trapped, in a web of my own design, because I believed all that I saw on tv, in films, it would all be so easy. They don’t warn you that every day would be a struggle to fight the loneliness to face the fear to just keep standing on your own two feet. You have to laugh and play along, there is no other option. You chose this. Do you admit defeat? No one will listen anyway, they will say it’s all in your head, you have always been the dramatic one. But you can understand those who finally escape, leave everything and everyone. Because every day is suffering and struggle and loneliness and it’s just too much.

I don’t know what to say, and yet I’m bursting at the seams with feelings, overflowing with disappointment. I have nowhere else to go I need to make this work. I try, I fool myself and my family and all those around me that we are doing just fine. But I am dying my soul leaking out little by little each day because I am confined here. I’m trapped in this beautiful gilded cage that never seems big enough to get away from him. I really tried but my eyes weren’t open to the doors slowing closing and the locks quietly turning. I’m confined here and I just need to survive

The innocent and the ignorant think it’s always just like the movies and criminal tv shows. A black eye, bruises, a battered and beaten woman crying in a shower or hospital bed. They always ask “why didnt you go to the police?!”

I can remember how it all started, even as far back as middle school. My neighborhood was the last stop for the bus which only left us the choice to sit in back with the bad kids, the older boys. They made me sit on their hands, talked about my *******, grabbed us, touched us and tormented us.

Unless she is black and blue, no one will believe she’s the victim.

He was going out for a smoke and I needed fresh air. I followed him up the stairs and somehow was at his room, he just had to grab his pack. I asked for a drink of water... I woke up, he had me completely immobilized with his body and just one hand, shirt up, pants down. I couldn’t move at all. “He knew I wanted it, that I liked it”... I tried to take control, I tried to ****** him to let me go. Finally I but his lip so hard he let me go. I left first thing the next morning.

I drank too much and I could not drive home, I asked to sleep a little at a friends house before driving home. He took that as an invitation for ***. He pushed and pushed and pushed and pushed despite adamant NO NO NO. I was a *****, a tease, what was I holding out for, he knew I wanted it... he finally got his way, I had no where else to go.

I’ve woken up to boyfriends touching me, having *** with me - somehow the understanding was that this is my duty as a girlfriend, conscious, willing or not...

These stories can go on and on. They didn’t beat me, I wasn’t battered and bruised but I was forced against my will. I knew there was no proof to support me, and who would believe the girl who stayed out too late, drank too much or gave in to her boyfriend.

Boys will be boys

I have witnessed this with many friends and was speechless to speak out... it’s not as easy as you think. It has become an expectation for women. Sometimes you finally give in just to make the harassment stop.

But there are those men, the ones that will take their time, that no means no, who realize there is time to get there if the feeling is right... we need more men like this.

Raise your boys right and your women strong.

❤️

I’m lost in the game of pretend, everything is fine. I waste time and breath and life to just get far enough away from the pain and disappointment, so it doesn’t hurt anymore. I’m fine...

It’s not about you stealing my life, precious years left of my precarious youth. You showed me I’m still weak and broken. You’ve shown me I still can’t walk away from the burning red flags you waved. I am not able to walk away from being hurt, over and over!

I made excuses for your beast, I hide from him as I did my own feelings of revolt and fear. I stayed, I should have left, as soon as I met you. I should never have let you tear away so much of me, to ruin so many precious memories.

Unfortunately now I’m still running and I’m still hiding from these feelings inside. I don’t want to admit that I’m the one that’s broken and I’m the one that can’t seem to walk away from the fire, no matter how much it burns.....

I don't think she ever knew the depths of my darkness, I think she just thought it was a phase or a mask I wore to fit in with my friends. I read pages and pages of pain and regret and anger and fear and loathing and sadness... she just laughed uncomfortably "wow, I had no idea" but she still doesn't... it's still there but I have learned over the years to tame this darkness. We must all wear our mask