i.
Nine years old
I remembered hands but no face
I knew something had happened to me
But it felt dreamlike
More like a nightmare.
Ten years old
I saw the contour of a body attached to those hands
Same dream, reoccurring.
But this couldn't be real.

ii.
"They won't understand you if you don't have proof"
"And if they don't understand you,"
"It didn't happen."
Lies that a fourteen year-old is conditioned to believe
I had come to identify the haunting silhouette in my mind
But could it have been my mind playing tricks?
My brain had always been a vindictive magician
Playing with my memory like a deck of cards
Making my sanity disappear in thin air.

iii.
People start asking questions
When you run away
What are you running from?
When a kitchen knife leaves train tracks on your wrists
So everyone knows where you have been
Why are you cutting yourself?
When a shot of gin followed by a Molotov cocktail of pills
Chases the tears you swallow
What are you trying to forget?
I am not trying to forget anything
I am trying to convince myself that my memories are accurate.

iv.
You finally talk.
But your distrust for your own representations of the event
Are only just beginning.
Nightmares continue to slam you into brick walls as you sleep
Your heart bursts like a balloon
One too many pregnancy scares
One too many hospital beds later
And you still can't believe this happened.

v.
Waking up screaming as knives force themselves down your throat
Never tasted so good.
What have I done to deserve this?
Cuts your lips
All you want to do is rip the scab off
Let the wound's open mouth swallow you whole.

vi.
I am nothing but a passenger
In the first steps of my recovery.
This is forced
Like they forced medication down the funnel of my mouth for eleven months
After I made threats
About throwing myself off a bridge.
Like eleven months worth of chemicals
Can balance me out?

vii.
Once I took control
Of my PTSD
Of my depression
Of my struggles with memory
I couldn't hide the fact that this had bombarded me
Everything was vivid
(That's what PTSD does to you)
So it became clear that this couldn't be a dream.
Your smell permeated my skin and my nostrils
To the point of vomiting.
How could this not be real?

viii.
I now own your mistakes
Like shackles upon my feet.
When I stand in the mirror I still see your face
My skin is saturated in your name
When I think of what you did to me
I want to reach up and rip your touch
Your mark
Out of my body
I want to clean every area you defiled
My body is a sacred temple
And you can pick your things up and leave.

ix.*
Because of you
My memory was warped
My sanctity was twisted
My sense of reality was distorted.
Because of me
I got all those things back and more.
Thank you for helping me find my own sanction
And helping me remember my childhood.