it's so amazing how easily i can determine
that i was not insane for a year and a half
now that you no longer block out the sun.

yeah, maybe i still can't look at your face
because i am so afraid to see you and have you trick me back into sympathy and compassion.

me, the girl who loved a ******.

maybe jesus taught me too well to love those that persecute me
he made me to fall in love with the man who grabbed me by the wrists and held me down.
would my father
would my pastor
would anyone
honor me for the sacrificial love i displayed for a year and a half
holding him
giving myself to him
loving him
would they pat me on the back
and say that i truly understand the love of god
letting a man ravage my life
for a year
and a
half

i don't even know the months anymore.
i've stopped counting
because i've stopped torturing myself
because i no longer can say
"here is the day he took it away from me
and here i am, still letting him over and over again."
the months past do not matter now.

i will start counting for a different reason:

1 month since i told him enough is ******* enough
2 months since i cut my arms open, writing my sins in my flesh
3 months since i decided that jesus was wrong
that loving my enemies will **** me
make my insides rot
that not loving this enemy
is simply
self preservation
4 months since i got my voice back.
5 months since i started to feel a heart beating in my chest again instead of a hollow socket
6 months since i laid in bed my head and tongue bursting with hate at the mere thought of his hands rough against me, mouth against my ear
7 months since i stopped lying to everyone around me about what really happened that first night
8 months since my body revolted as my mind toiled on in utter confusion, darting from one frightened thought to the next
9 months since i had to worry about carrying a child that he conceived alone
10 months since i beat my head against a cement wall, trying to smash the memories
of what he did to me
11 months since i hugged his mother and met his family wanting to tell them they had a ****** predator for a son
1 YEAR SINCE I LET A BOY CONSUME THE ESSENCE AND JOY AND PURITY OF WHO I AM AND WHAT I WISH I COULD BOLDLY STAND FOR.

i will count the future months
on the gritty pockmarked sidewalk to recovery
until i find again my way
to a sound mind
a sound body
and a sound heart
victimize me no longer,
you who removed from me my innocence
and hung it around my neck
like an albatross that i shot
and not you...

to love again, will be an awfully big adventure.