The first time I met remission
She was the warmth of a lover's arms
A stream of sunlight amid the fog
A snowflake in the desert.

The first time I met remission
Was the first time I sat in health class
And talked about dieting
Without feeling like the target
Nor the antithesis
Of the conversation.

The first time I met remission
I no longer felt like the "fat girl"
I embraced the fact
That fat was not a synonym
To my worst fears.
Fat not ugly
Fat not worthless
Fat still beautiful
Fat always beautiful

The first time I met remission
I knew exactly who she was
As these were not conscious thoughts
That I had the ability to switch off
Just as my bulimia
Did not function as a series of buttons I could control
At least not in the throes of it.

The second time I met remission
I felt my knees hit the bathroom tiles
My spine broke into the floor
But I was physically sick
And I did not get flashes of memory
Of the glamour and horror
In which my disorder used to manifest itself
Daily.

I continue to meet remission
I talk to her on a regular basis.
She showed up a year and a half into my recovery.
She is the guardian angel
I never knew I needed.

I continue to meet remission
She reminds my that even this
Is not the end.
She tells me that even the chapter of my life
Characterized by binging and purging
Characterized by acting inhumane
Characterized by hating myself
Is like ash in the water now.
She reminds me
That just because one chapter was unbecoming
My story isn't over yet.

I see my reflection in your teeth
Between cracked lips
My body reflects off of the most violent part of you
That you use everyday.
I try to pry myself from your skin
Your stench saturates my sanity
I cannot look at myself the same way
I cannot look at you at all.

You continue, to chew & chew
And I continue, to wash & wash

Violently trying to cleanse myself of you.

Breaking down is not so hard to do
As I spiral into some sort of psychosis
Disillusion is the ultimate form of madness
Because you just keep spinning
Until you hit the ground
Unaware of the fact
you are even broken.

I wear your conquests like a chain around my neck
i.
The first time you violated my body
ii.
The time I told, embarrassed of myself, and for what?
iii.
The time I thought I had let go, but still could not stop tearing my up mind
iv.
The times I lost sleep because I feared you would find me

I hate you
I don't.
I hate you
I make excuses for you
I hate you
I hate me.

You taught me things I must consciously forget to remember
You remind me of things I must consciously remember to forget
As you chew, rip, tear at my skin
And my beating heart
I hope your teeth crack with every bite.

The first one hurts the longest.
The second one hurts the hardest.
And the third one doesn't hurt at all.

He's your fifth 4am ***** shot
your beer pong binger
your 6am hook up,
numbing every nerve in your entire body

and it feels the best but ends up the worst at 5am
when he's holding your hair over the toilet
and singing you to sleep
when he's lacing his fingers through your hair

and your waist
and your hands
and through the tiny fractured crevices
between your injured heart.

The third is the tallest climb
the longest fall
the most honest hour
the pounding hangover and

the beaten emotions you never even knew you kept pent up
until he's slipping his tongue through your mouth
and you're pulling his bottom lip to pull him closer
to let him take whatever is even left of you.

The third is your weakness
because he will catch your heart when it's still on your sleeve,
tattered and stained from the ***** you threw up
as easily as the words that got him to hold you like he used to.

The third will whisper
the third will listen
the third will taste like the butterflies you thought you poisoned.

But the third is definitely a charm.

gd

Dear you,
I miss you.
The name of a spice that smells so sweetly in the spring
Your name was so fitting.

Dear you,
How are you?
I live in my own pain that smells like a sewage plant
You have nothing do with it
You were always kind.

Dear you,
How dare you be so kind?
How dare you believe me
The person who accused your son of being a child molester?
Although, I never spoke poison
Everything I said was true
Why did you believe me?

Dear you,
I had trouble believing myself.
Knowing this happened
I detached so eloquently from the event
For seven years
I formed an alter ego
In which I could live comfortably

Dear you,
Are you comfortable?
I really do hope I didn't tear your family apart
As I seem to be so privy at
Why, just look at mine.
I played a heavy hand in the way
It's pretty ****** up

Dear you,
You are the only person who didn't treat me like a **** up
When you had every reason to
You never blamed me
You apologized for him
So why am I still holding onto this guilt?
Why am I so ashamed to see you?
Why am I so fearful?
Because, even though you never blamed me
I have always blamed myself.

Dear Rosemarie,
I really miss you.
Please tell me you haven't forgotten
The times we went to baseball games
Or when we went to my favorite restaurant
We both ate the same thing every time.

Dear Rosemarie,
I hope you don't blame me
Just as I don't blame you.
What he did was not your fault
I still love you with every ounce of emotion my heart can build up
Our memories are like butterflies, beautiful but fleeting
And all I want is to run after them
Catch them in the palm of my small hands
Please, Auntie
Can't we run and catch them together?

Dear Rosemarie,
I've never been able to tell you how strong you are
Daddy told you what your son did to me
Over coffee at a diner in Pennsylvania
I would think that would be as bad as
A text message with contention-soaked letters
An email with despair marked in the spaces
A phone call with unrest woven into the wires
Public displays of tragedy are the worst
And seemingly impersonal.

Dear Rosemarie,
He said you were never mad
In fact,
He said you never even questioned my trembling words
That were vibrating even from miles away
My initial fear in telling was that you would be hurt
Or even angry
Although that is not in your nature
But you believed me
And for that, I will be forever thankful.

Dear Rosemarie,
Remember how Uncle Joe used to smoke
And you'd make him go outside around us kids?
I didn't even know about his habit until I was close to nine.
Well now, cancer sticks are my vice
And I don't hide it quite as well.

Dear Rosemarie,
You were the only person I accepted sympathy from
Even though I heard it through my father
Because we both lost something sacred that day.
You may be the only person as destroyed by this as I was
So here is my chance to tell you that I am sorry
Not for coming forward
Not for tearing a family apart
But for what he did to me
And how it hurt you.

Dear Rosemarie,
The pores in my bones still remind me
I am hollow
I am human
Just as he is.
I do not hate him
Try to be soft with him
After all, he was only a teenager as well.

Dear Rosemarie,
I really miss you.
Please tell me you haven't forgotten
Me
Because I will never forget you.

To the kid in the hallway telling his friend
"Maybe you need a **** whistle."
And to her response, a sarcastic
"Matt, **** jokes aren't funny."
You're **** right they aren't
Tell me, how is anyone forcing themself onto another person funny?
How are the I don't want tos when her "no" couldn't scream loud enough funny?
How are the ****** thighs and bruised hips funny?
How is the waking up in the middle of the night
How are the flashbacks and her wailing funny?
How is the seven year-old who had so much anxiety she'd tear her hair out
Or a sixteen year-old who kept eyeliner and a kitchen knife side by side in her purse funny?
It's about as funny as a slaughterhouse full of pigs taunting the other pigs
And telling them their approaching doomsday is amusing.
I dug my key into the palm of my hand like a knife when I heard this jeer
Clenching and unclenching a fist
Because I knew if I did not
That hand would go right through your faces.
You do not know the impact of your words
You see, for a survivor
Jokes about ****** assault are triggers.
They bring back every memory
Which becomes a stinging tear behind an eyeball
Fighting not to emerge from its home.
When I say something
Classically I am being "too sensitive"
Just as I was "too sensitive"
When he told me to get on top of him
And I said no
So much courage mustered up in a little body
I could have moved mountains that day
I could have been my own goddess
At seven years old
But he did not care
He was bigger than me
And he imposed that will onto my body
Reducing my childlike frame to the size of a fly
Being swatted by the paw of a lion.
I will not be silent
So when you tell a **** joke and I am in earshot
Do not expect me to laugh
Because there is nothing funny about a slaughterhouse.

I sit in my seventh grade health class
*** ed freshman year
My twelfth grade english class
And they talk about ****.
They talk about it like it's an idea
A textbook definition
A rare shadow of society
That doesn't happen to real people
At least not people you know.
They act like there is only one way it happens
It's either a creepy forty year-old man who comes into your bedroom uninvited
Over and over again.
Or, as you grow up,
A boyfriend or date with whom you are, in their opinion,
'Stupid' enough to get drunk with
Passed out on a bed
Your clothes are like weights that anchor your heavy soul.
Maybe my form of abuse was different
As I was in his bed
Which felt more like a coffin full of spiders
As spirits plucked every last bit of life from me
Like guitar strings.
He was not a crusty old man with years of experience molesting children
He was my beloved fourteen year-old cousin
Who had struggled with Aspbergers his whole life.
I had looked up to him regardless.
How could I hate someone who was sick?
How could I hate someone who may or may not have
Understood the severity of what he was doing?
He only molested me once
But it molded my impressionable mind
Like silly putty
From then on I only fell for men
Who had bloodstained hands
And crooked smiles.
It is no wonder that at sixteen
Even after I had dealt with the aftermath of his hurricane
Another boy took advantage of me
And left me seldom sleeping.
It is no wonder that I did not recognize his abuse right away
Or that even though I knew he had wronged me
I would not call it assault.
It is no wonder that instead of press charges or tell my parents
I chose to avoid it
Confiding in my therapist only because I was backed into a corner
Treading quicksand all the while.
The harder you fight, the faster you sink.
After I told about my molestation at fourteen
My parents, although they were extremely supportive,
Told me to keep it quiet
Not to tell everyone.
Their intentions were exceptional
But they made me believe I had something to be ashamed of
When I realized this wasn't the case
I screamed at the top of my lungs
Shouted across the valleys
I was going to be heard
And when I joined forced with others who
Had dealt with similar events
Our ashes piled together
Created a smoke signal so vibrant, so immense
That people had to intentionally avert their eyes in order not to notice it.
We are not the bruises of society
For you to poke and **** at
To see how much our wounds hurt.
We are not for your corrupt education system
Your industry
That you can choose to use for your campaign
Just when our stories are marketable.
These stories do not all look the same
Different chapters
Different pages
Different font styles.
My story is mine
And I do not get to pick and choose
Take my assault off the shelf just when it looks pristine and proper
I live with this everyday
And just as burn victims still have marks that remind them
Of the incident
I still have pieces of me
That struggle with this event on a daily basis.
But I choose to use it in a way that makes me whole.
I cannot change the story
But I can change the ending
And I accept the fact that it will never be a porcelain doll
But it is my battle scar to show as I please
I am a survivor
That is my bragging right
And no one else's shame.

Dear reader,


It won't be long before they electrocute the trees with candy colored Christmas lights. Soon everything will be gone: memories, glances, the year. Every thing will dissolve into nostalgia and our lives will become more patchwork and less hopeful. Soul-crushingly sweet our smiles will be, as we watch that disguised meteorite crash into our existence.

Her name was Reno. Her dad joked he named her so because she was the result of a gamble gone wrong.

I could see the stitching around her eyes start to falter, as tears slipped out like a young nineteen year-old girl, running out of the back of a double-wide. Away. Away from it all. Leaving her father, the mechanic who could only fix things with his hands. Running through a field as shimmering as her nails, touching the tall grass with her short fingers.

"I'm not trailer trash," she said, "I've just had it rough."

Reno could see things others couldn't see. Frequently she painted wrecked cars, and I asked why, to which she explained, "Some accidents are allowed to be beautiful."

I fell for her the way her jaw drops after one of my inappropriate jokes: quickly and with such joy.

She had the same answer to when I asked if she liked movies and if she missed her mom.

"Of course I do, Josh," she looked at me and smiled, "Hey buck, have you ever seen True Romance?"

A woman after my own heart.

We watched Christian Slater shoot Drexl, and, like a bullet to the chest, she placed her hand over my heart.

"My, oh my, are you sure that rib cage is big enough for that thing, Mr. Haines?"

She looked a little like Patricia Arquette, but identical to Michelle Williams.

"Are you aware that you look like Michelle Williams?"

Reno ran her hands up my legs, across my torso, and held her hands at my jaw,"Are you aware of how good of a person you are, John Mayer?"

"Ah, yeah. I've gotten that since high school."

She smiled, looked down and up at me,"No, the part about you being a good person? ...You're the drawing on my wall."

I didn't know what that meant.

"I had this drawing-so terrible-it was of the sunset on our hill in Welling Valley," she looked into me and down, while smiling,"Anyway, the sun would kiss the grass every evening, and one day I thought I'd draw it and keep it in my room. When every thing got ugly with my daddy's drinking, and when he beat me something awful, I wanted something to remind me that the light sometimes goes away but will always be back another day. You're my light, Josh. You're the next day after nineteen years of cussing and drinking."

We made love on my bed, as, through the window, the sun bathed our bodies. Her body was a sculpture and her voice was as soft as her lips. I was terrified.

Pulling her hair back, she stood at the foot of my bed, naked,"Are you scared of little ole' me? You look as white as a ghost."

"No, I've never felt so alive... You're so ******* beautiful."

Reno and I lain in bed while Parks and Rec played on the television. Her index and ******* walked across my chest and stopped as she asked, "Josh, have you ever been in love?"

I touched my fingers on hers, studying them with my eyes, and then I looked at her, "Yes, once."

"What was it like?"

I thought I'd feel pain but instead I smiled, "Fantastic, fleeting, and always a little out of reach."

She cooed, "I can't wait until I think I love you like nobody else."

"Me too."



Sincerely,


Joshua Haines