even then, before anything had the chance to taint her,
little Kitty proved to be a precocious child
with what seemed to be wisdom far beyond her few years.
I fixated on *** early,
far before I had been told what it was.
I was hyper-aware of my body,
my innate power, even as a child.
I felt the eyes of men on me
(though, whether or not they were ever really there,
I cannot now discern).
I craved darkness and drama;
I fantasized about being swept off my feet
by a handsome older man,
perhaps a teacher or another authority figure.
the author's words spoke to my soul,
made me feel something:
perhaps comfort, perhaps distress.
I see myself in the girl, and, by extension, her creator.
My relationship with her is similar to the one she has with the Haze child,
both a mirrored reflection of--
and a total foil to--
one another,
existing as twin examples of the same form of helplessness,
and as polar opposites
set against one another to highlight two different vantages.
I don’t just feel for her, or feel like her.
I feel as though she and I are one person.
one kindred spirit.
The pages of the novel glare at me like a mirror.
At first glance, I see the distorted face and think,
I am looking into a carnival mirror,
with warped glass made to parody the face peering in.
But after a while I start to recognize,
with a spreading sense of dread,
that there is no distortion here.
The face looking back is the most accurate and undiluted depiction of myself that I have ever seen.
It seems distorted to me because I have become accustomed
to Snapchat filters and blurred photos,
mirrors that enhance and soften,
and lighting that flatters by concealing the flaws
--flaws set in the very way my face is built.
I am broken and distorted to my very core
my first honest reflection is equal parts horrifying and gratifying.
I have taken my first breath of fresh air
after being indoors for so long,
my first bitter and shocking inhale of air
unpolluted by Febreze and candle smoke.
It burns my lungs and clears my mind so suddenly
that I wonder if I will pass out from the shock of it all.
it is not just a sense of camaraderie in the story of abuse;
nor is it limited to the ways their traumas define them,
manifesting in their very souls.
I hear my own voice when Vanessa talks
of wanting to feel special, to be a rare sort of beautiful.
I am moved with her as she reaches desperately
for that feeling of power, to feel in-control
whilst blindly navigating a world
where old white men call the shots.
I rise and fall with her, swept away in the giddiness
of her crush on her teacher, enraptured by the sensuality
when she describes the first time he makes her tremble and shake from ******.
I share in her heartbreak and horror
when he rapes her for the first time,
(whether she accepts “the r-word” as truth or not).
I feel her carnal fear of the male form
disgust at the first ***** she ever encounters
and the blockade her mind builds to protect her from it.
Each following description of the *** they have makes me feel
*****, and polluted, right alongside her.
And of course, the very truth which would have exonerated me
as hers would pardon her
is the thing keeping me chained to this rock
as teenage vultures peck away at my dignity.
No, I realize.
The secret is the rock, and the vultures are in my head.
And he is nothing but the tumor
of my liver that refuses to stop growing back.
I remember watching the pity in the eyes of my peers melt away
replaced with disgust and apathy
as I went from being the girl involved in a scandal
to being the girl who lied to get attention.
I feel my cheeks burn with hers, and I remember
the scalding shower I took
after my own confession
of a lie so ugly that it almost feels worse than the truth.
I feel the raw honesty by which she finally is broken down,
admitting her places in it:
as both a victim and a participant.
The desire I once had for attention and recognition vanishes,
as the attention I am given proves to be ugly and uncomfortable.
The web of lies falls away like scales
from her eyes
A cold awakening and the bitter reality
that replaces soothing denial
And she finds--
what?
catharsis? redemption?
freedom? peace? closure?
Why should a real trauma be so much less
despicable
that a fabricated one?
Why does it feel as though I brought upon myself
Everything that happened after that?
The book sits on a shelf, untouched
since the first time I opened it up
to the cavernous tangle of thorns inside.
I am not alone,
and the darkness inside me
doesn’t have to define me
as the girl's does.
When I was eleven, I lied and told my classmate that something bad had happened to me. There were flecks of truth in it, but what I told was in the end, a lie. But like a self-fulfilling prophecy, that very thing came true in the end. And now I cannot find it in myself to see that little girl I was as a victim. After all, isn’t this exactly what she’d wanted? Whether she actually believed it was or not, she made it so. Didn’t she?
Over a decade later, I discovered a book that somehow managed to reflect back to me every ugly feeling I’ve had as a result of both the lie and the truth. My Dark Vanessa, by Kate Elizabeth Russell, changed my life and made me feel as though somebody out there understood me. It wasn’t a flattering portrait she drew, but it was honest. And I am so grateful for the ways it has helped me heal.
