Journey to a Half-Assed Revelation
Trigger Warning: content in this piece contains references to rape and incest.
I was nine when the bleeding started.
The beginning of womanhood,
A party to celebrate.
The crash of fireworks masking whimpers,
Unwanted exchanges of fluid
In my childhood bedroom.
His frame surrounded me, and parts of him,
I didn’t know it existed.
Pushed in and out.
In and out.
Maybe the blood enticed him,
Lured him to corruption.
Fireworks thundered overhead
Angles of colour are a helpful distraction;
Escaping into childhood lost.
My grandfather was a war veteran.
Adored and honourable,
Even while hunched over a pliant body.
Medals of bravery dangled from formal shirts,
a light twinkle of sound amid desperate gasps.
Sometimes you hear stories,
Stories of war heroes losing memories.
He has never forgotten me.
It was always my name, he spat out
When he was finished,
Touches almost tender.
The metal teeth of his zipper clenched together,
A cry of victory erupts
from his throbbing throat.
“I love you.”
I wished he was lying.
I wished he didn’t smile at me
As if I’m anything more than some filthy rag,
Covered in grime.
Shutting the door, he left me to rot.
Touch is different now.
Winters have passed.
I am intimately aware that my body is not my own.
Sexuality smeared, blurry and detached.
I let faceless people pry me open,
Attempt to explore what has already been ravaged.
It’s easier to pretend,
Pretend to find pleasure,
In meaningless whispers
And demanding grips.
It’s all the same.
Hands lifting my shirt,
stripping my stockings.
Wanting, lusting, taking.
Even feminine hands,
Smaller and smoother;
But just as depraved.
The hands.
The hands are always his.
My body is forever bound to him,
Skin stained down to the molecules
Parts I thought he couldn’t reach.
Illusions of freedom drive me insane,
Longing for an embrace
That doesn’t fill my mouth with bile.
I don’t care who.
Just somebody.
Somebody to take his place.
Night is safer than day.
In the cover of night,
Only stars can see the filth.
Years of his love have left me foul,
A stranger gazing into a circus mirror.
In the night, it was only him.
His breath along pale inner thighs and bruised hips,
A steady rhythm supplied,
Held down by sweaty arms.
I taught myself how to live.
Tears don’t fall.
Mouth stays shut.
The dark is paralysing,
Familiar.
Some nights I don’t feel him at all
Skin scarred but weightless.
No longer crushed by memories of him,
Rummaging and rooting through my insides.
Trying to love more of me.
In the light of day
It’s harder to hide.
A raw nerve,
waiting to be cut and exposed.
Because sometimes,
He is all I can think of.
Simple grazes of skin alert me to run.
The hurt,
The ripping
Eventual numbness of a sticky end.
Filling me.
I stand in a bright spotlight,
Full of his love.
Most days, I feel normal.
No longer trapped in that musty room
I can pretend to forget.
But I know.
Kindness is not a common trait in this world.
Men broadly scanning little boys in shorts and tank tops,
The same unsubtle eyes from my memory.
Maybe one day, I won’t startle awake at night,
Waiting for him to crawl into my bed,
Into me.
Maybe fireworks won’t make my heart drop
Make me feel so very,
empty.
Maybe I can still protect this young body of mine;
Protect what he left behind.