Her neck can't hold the weight of her head, her neck can't hold Her knees are swaying with the movement of the car, the car sways
Her eyes close. The driver’s seat is talking, it’s laughing, it’s explaining its long drive from Los Angeles
She thinks Lohs-Ang-ehl-es, Los Angeles, the City of Angels, Angel City Her loose cheeks at this thought pull upward into a smile, Her chin presses into her throat, She hears this stupid conversation in her head
My oh my am I wasted
The driver’s seat soberly asks questions, it asks her things she can’t hear she can’t understand the sounds, the phonics, they drip and are blurry
Is there rain on the windshield? No, it isn’t raining…she sucks her loose cheeks against her cheekbones, gasping for air The drowning rain is in her eyes, she closes them
The night outside the driver’s seat window is like her closed eyes, her closed eyes bring Only movement, sickening. ______________________________________________________
She sits on the couch, the leather brown couch, the used cheap couch
A curly-haired man skitters across the wood floor to another room The last thing she sees of him is a sparkling white-toothed smile And two eyes not looking at her, they are looking at…
Him.
He stands in the kitchen, big, wide-chested, muscular. His body is strong. His mind is steady.
She knows him, she’s been here many times before. She smiles, pressing her loose cheeks against the soft palms of her hands. Her mouth moves saying something I can’t understand and she smiles. he is saying indiscernible things He sounds just like the sober driver’s seat
My loose cheeks like putty
He is golden, in the dingy kitchen light, he carries two thin glasses Filled with golden liquid
Suddenly he is standing in front of her, his golden glass empty Suddenly in her hand, a golden tall glass
He lightly presses her glass up to her mouth Its taste makes her chin press into her throat, cheeks like putty are sucked tight against her cheekbones ______________________________________________________
She is suddenly cold, cold in her nakedness, the nakedness that is sudden and puzzling Puzzling, she looks down at him, him not looking at her face looking at her belly noticing she hasn’t gained too much weight since the long summer He is inside of her She can’t move, she wants it over quick so she can curl up or throw up and go to sleep
The first man she enjoyed being with throws her around the bed like a doll, Like she has no substance, no say her body will not respond to her heart pounding in her throat, sickening Her brain is blank, it is a blank blank brain
He flips her onto her hands and knees, the movement nauseates her His body pounds into her, weight hitting over her, too fast, too rough, slapping her butt, Like a piece of frozen meat thawing
She is looking at a crack in the grey wall paint, the blurry grey wall paint, The crack is still, it stills her She swallows, and knows she won’t throw up ______________________________________________________
I wake up.
A daze, the bright rush of morning I blink. I gag with nausea, a still moment at the edge of the bed, the floor sloshes at my feet.
a toilet flushes. he walks out with a towel around his waist he smiles, pointing to the disheveled sheets he says, “Mission accomplished.”
I look down, swallow a lump in my throat, another urge to vomit. “I gotta use the bathroom.” It hurts to pee, it’s hot and painful down there. I grimace, I hold my lower belly. I tenderly touch myself there, down there. Blood, not much, but there it is still. My shirt is on backwards due to my flight from his room of nausea, in pain, in disgust.
He drives me back to my car, 20 minutes away, 20 minutes we drive in silence. My hangover begins to set in… I open the door to leave, he says, “Hey! Aren’t you going to give me a hug?” he says, “You’re welcome for the ride.”
Pain down there. ______________________________________________________
I was 19 he was 25.
3 years of an isolating eating disorder, 3 years of numbing, of destroying my body, my self 3 years of utterly lost worth fearing men as I get catcalls on the streets of D.C. at 8 am on the way to work the last two long summers. 3 years of being unable to understand why I couldn’t allow myself to become close to anyone. 3 years of wondering where my love had gone. 3 years of hate hating sex, hating my body, the root of my pain My lost worth ______________________________________________________
Realization, it is a slow process Blocking the pain doesn’t make it go away Misinterpreted strength: detachment, stability, silence…a sheet of ice.
I was born knowing how to love, I was taught how to hate I am reborn I am filled again with my love
And as long as I can love, I can live ______________________________________________________
[“Of all crimes committed against a person, rape is the one that leaves a person feeling the most violated. A rape victim is often left with the feeling that that a part of them has been torn apart. Because the feeling is still with them, the victim may have a sense that the crime is continuously occurring. To use another person's body and ignore the soul the resides within is the most egregious crime that one person can commit against another.”]