Somewhere along the line,
I stopped knowing
i was worth something.

I’m not sure where
I left this knowledge behind,
i have stopped looking.

Perhaps I might have noticed,
If the sun weren’t in my eyes
as I slept in dark corners.

No one else noticed it,
As I hoped they wouldn’t
and wished they would.

Somewhere along the line,
I stopped knowing
to be afraid of death.

And that is where the line ended.

Mind’s calisthenics,
Trigger words’ pyrotechnics;
Ah! Euphoria!

When people ask me who I am without my anxiety I don't know how to answer them

I walk around with a zipper at the nape of my neck

And when I open myself up without the anxiety that forms me there is nothing but sadness and ice left

Sometimes I feel like there is sunlight penetrating through my bones, begging to escape

But when I pull down the zipper my anxiety laughs at how I could think that there was even a possibility of something bright and warm inside of me

 

If you ask me who I am without my anxiety I will tell you, I am me, but the voice inside my head tells me I am nothing

My anxiety is the love that fills me

The terror that inspires me

The perfectionism that drives me

But I can't say that out loud

Because dinner party conversation or first date question games are not the appropriate places to say that without it I am dead inside

 

When I take my medication, I have been described as flat

1 dimensional

Having no substance

So when you ask who I am without my anxiety

Telling you I am nothing, may be the only honest answer

The chemical formula for love contains Dopamine, Oxytocin, and Serotonin

Dopamine relieves pain, helps with motivations, movement, and is a leading cause of addiction

Oxytocin controls cognitive control, emotional responses, and social behavior

Serotonin  effects appetite, sleep, memory, and ****** desire

Sweetheart when I met you my internal pharmacy went insane

The ****** in me overdosed on every capsule it could find

But here

Here is the kicker

Overdosing on any piece of this mystical, magical love potion can cause a slough of disorders

Depression

Schizophrenia

Extreme Paranoia

Over all insanity

Somehow

Somehow all this love nonsense

Finally makes sense

I love the gun between your legs
You say it can’t start wars
But oh it can ,
that head of yours
When fired at me
The war begins
I battle to not want you

i can't look her in the eyes
she means the world to me
but in blue irises come memories
repressed, forgotten, unwanted

his were a clear, vibrant sky
beautiful, even picturesque
but he wanted so much more
than flattery and a late-night dance

he met me at a baseball field
"it's just a date, don't be so nervous!"
"it's raining," i argued. "it's cold."
"i can fix that for you"

and my jacket came off
colder
my shoes, sopping wet
colder
my top, clinging to my skin
colder
my pants, a barrier
colder

but then i was warm with him
my lips, my ****, between my legs
it was angry, like a raging wildfire
and his touch burned me alive

he moved away not long after
the desecration of my body
i have no clue where he is
but i hate the color of her eyes

Early Sunday morning.
Brisk wind, no jacket.
Waiting for a taxi,
shivers in my bones.
Shameful looks from my mother -
she thinks I stopped out last night.

Monday afternoon.
The whole school knows.
Taunts, laughter, names
as I walk through the corridors -
isn't school supposed to be safe?
I see the boys
- I hate them, I hate them, I hate them -
feel ***** rise through my throat
and the blood in my brain thicken.
Hear words that cut like knives:
"****", "*****",
"I can't believe she had a foursome".
I cannot walk into the canteen,
it's full of piercing lion eyes
searching for their prey;
me.
I am called into the head of years office,
heavy footsteps echoing with sorrow
as I enter.
Concerned eyes break through my skin
creating bullet holes in my fragility.
The words I couldn't face
finally enter the wind.
"Was it consensual?"
No, no, no, no.
Cheeks wet with cascading tears.
The truth finally said,
spoken aloud like an oracle.
I wait for fifty minutes.
Fluorescent police uniforms march the halls.
And my mother.
She's crying, she knows,
she hugs me.
Tells me she's sorry.
In the small back office
surrounded by teachers and police and my mum,
words are exchanged.
I see moving lips but cannot hear the words.
My senses are drowned by the event leading up to this.
They gave me a name
in the bedroom that night.
"It", like an object.
Unhuman, unfeeling.

The same Monday evening.
Next thing I know I'm at home.
Brought back to consciousness
with an assertive knock at the front door.
More uniforms, more police.
Mum explains that they have to take my statement.
I panic, cry -
I've done a lot of that today.
I hide some things from them;
I'm too ashamed.
They have cameras on their vests,
tiny eyes watching me,
recording the moment I recall my trauma.
My body hurts,
but my brain and my heart are in agony.
They ask me to take my clothes off.
How can they ask me that?
Explanations are given to my mother,
her face conveys the emotions that I'm too numb to feel.
It's protocol,
they need evidence of any injuries, they say.
Choked sobs escape my mother's mouth
as I take my clothes off.
Shades of black and blue litter my body.
*******, thighs, stomach, *** -
my skin edited by violent hands.
My most intimate areas a part of a police file forever.
They take my ****** jeans, underwear, top all into evidence.
They leave.

Tuesday morning.
I am told not to go into school
by the head of year.
The boys are still allowed.
Motionless body lying in bed,
I stare at the wall for hours.
All of my energy put towards breathing.
Mum skipped work,
sitting outside my bedroom door
like a prison guard -
terrified I would hurt myself.
I can't speak.
How do you tell the woman who raised you
that you don't want to be alive anymore?

About a week later.
I still haven't been to school.
I've barely moved from my bed.
The physical marks have almost vanished,
but the sadness cripples me still.
I have to go to a police station today,
a forty minute trip.
My best friend comes.
I'm numb, I cannot feel the car moving.
I have been numb for over a week.
Isolation caves in on me -
I'm in an interview room with a policewoman and man.
They say three's a crowd,
but I still feel completely alone.
Just over six hours.
Recounting the event took over six hours.
The walls of the interview room painted grey,
or maybe that's just the only colour I can see now.
I didn't cry.
I haven't cried since the Monday that everything became real.
Fragments of the night flash through my mind,
it's becoming difficult to close my eyes.
I went into the interview room while it was light outside,
I leave and it's pitch black.
When I check the time on my phone before I hand it in as evidence,
it's almost 11pm.

Another week passes.
I'm still not allowed into school.
Most of my friends have given up on me.
They don't want to be associated with the girl who cried **** because she was embarrassed of her foursome.
But no-one knows what happened behind that door.
The horrors that occurred,
the venom in the insults they spat at me,
using my body as a human rag doll.
The police call, the detective assigned to my case.
My heart drops
as my mum tells me what he says.
"They're treating two of the boys as witnesses,
only one as a suspect."
I go to my bedroom as I feel my heart strings sever.
Try to sleep,
but I cannot close my eyes.
I see the room,
the darkness,
their eyes.
I smell sweat and shame.
I hear them calling me "it" -
a worthless victim.
I feel the poison on their fingertips.
Dead the second they touched me.

Months pass.
Less contact with the police.
I go back to school.
Adjust to life as 'that girl'.
Learn to sleep again.
Deal with the nightmares and flashbacks.
Stop panicking every time someone touches me.
Open up about the pain I feel every day.

It's February.
Ten months later.
I haven't heard from the police since December.
When I ring
they tell me my case has been dropped.
They say there's a lack of evidence.
What they really mean is that no-one in court will believe
my story against the three of there's.
I expected this.
The blood on my underwear
does not count.
The pictures of my body painted with bruises
do not count.
The six hour recording where I describe every soul breaking ******
does not count.
The countless therapy sessions trying to fix the flashbacks and panic attacks
do not count.
The nights I planned how to die
do not count.
I used to be a person.
Now I'm just another **** case,
unsolved,
at the bottom of the pile.