Last night I had a dream
And in this dream I was awakening to a memory
A memory I had long forgotten was mine
In this dream
The moon shined down on us with all her glory
Delicate yet powerful and
Indescribably bright
Beneath her light people gathered for the party
A sea of drunk teenagers
Spread across the stained floors
Barefoot and sticky and vulnerable
Everyone just wants to have a good time, right?
No one means any harm right?
I should loosen up and have fun, right?
Your friends are dizzy and drunk and relaxed while you
You are on guard
You are always on guard
There’s no telling what alcohol could do to you
In a house filled with broken hearts and greedy boys and
Suddenly, the dream transitions
All I see is his face
All I feel is the soft carpet against my skin
And then him forcing my legs back
The word no cascades down my chest like how waterfalls flow
down mountain tops
Fast and hard and unmistakably clear
And he acts as if I say nothing
So I learn it’s better to say nothing
Less painful when I say nothing
As if the word no can be ignored
As if my personal powerful doesn’t exist and so
I tighten bolts around my jaw
Clenched fists
His thread sows my mouth shut where my smile used to be
And now I can only open it when he wants me to
Still No
No sits in my mouth like a caged animal
Locked behind teeth but fighting to get out
No rattles my jaw
No blows smoke out of my ears
And so I drown No out in white noise forgetting
That I have a right to say No
That I always have
And its not my fault
That some people choose not to listen
Locked within her cage
sometimes No finds her way out
Like a thief in the night she wiggles her way through the
gaps of my teeth and spills out like water
But with a voice that is now so small, my loudest shriek is merely
a whisper
Even I can barely hear my own cries
In this moment of defeat, the dream transitions again
I look up and see a reflection of myself
Staring down at me with worry sown between her brows I yell
to her
Do something! She shakes her head, powerless and tells me to
take it.
Tells me that it will be over soon
Tells me all I can do is surrender
There is no fight left inside me
Abandoned by my own power I begin to search
Unrelenting
Not willing to give it up so easy I
look in the attic
I look in basement, under the stairwell and in all the dark
places I never go without a flashlight
Only to find nothing but dust bunnies and old photographs of
the girl I used to be
Suddenly I’m awake
Gasping for air my partner no longer there
They left early for work and now
Now I’m home alone, breathless and reflecting
This dream opened up a spiral of memories
I no longer knew still belonged to me
He said that I deserved fancy things
So he made me a necklace out of his hands
And called it a gift
When I didn’t want to wear it he tied it tighter around my
neck
Said, I looked prettier this way
Said, I looked more appealing this way
Said, liked me better this way, preferred me this way
And even now I still can’t seem to take it off
I wear it when I take showers and
When I see myself naked in the mirror and
When I get dressed up for brunch with my mom and
When I go to class and
When I go to work and to sleep I wear his hands this
necklace I did not want in the first place
He said that my body was just so appetizing
He just couldn’t resist taking it for himself
Holding onto it for safe keeping storing me
In his pants like pocket change
So he could add up all the pieces of my body
The naked pieces of my body
The broken pieces of my body
To determine my worth
And never let me forget
That I am just a woman
Just another thing he can exert power over
Just another woman he can fuck whenever he wants to
Just another voice he can squash whenever he wants to
Just another pussy he can play with whenever he wants to
Just another girl asking for it
Just another ass he can spank
Just another toy he can play with
Just another mangled body pressed under his fingernails
Nothing more than pocket change easily tossed into the gutter
And now, now I’m remembering
Being filled with his semen
Gasping for breath
swallowing the sun hoping
That maybe, maybe if I swallow hard enough
The suns fire could burn away all the pieces of me he has
touched
so I can start over
It is two years later
The broken pieces of my being have come together again
The wounds and worries reopen sometimes, but if I’ve learned
anything
It is that my wounds can be mended
They may scar
They may hurt still
Sometimes while watching sunsets
Or at the movies or on airplane rides
The occasional flinch away from my lovers touch
The panic attacks and nightmares are real
And believe me they do hurt
These wounds are still fragile
They re-openen even when the most delicate of flowers brush
against me
But still I plant seeds in my chest hoping that one day they
will bloom into gardens
Of rosebushes so beautiful and sharp I will always feel
protected by the light of my own beauty
Instead of being a victim to it
My beauty
Did not attract his violence
My womanhood
Did not ask him for it
My hips and waist and chest and eyes
Are not to blame for his actions
His actions towards me do not define who I am because
I
Am not your play toy
I
Am not disposable
I
Am not just some meat puppet you can fuck whenever you want
to
I
Am not your slut or your whore
I am a woman
The very definition of light and beauty and divinity is
woven within by being
I am comprised of soil and sunlight and butterfly kisses and
innocence
My body is mine to share whenever the fuck I want to
My lips are to be kissed whenever the fuck I want them to
My voice is to respected
Because I am loud and powerful and strong
You cannot hold the totality of all the woman I am
You cannot take away the freedom that dances within the
walls of my own skin
You cannot penetrate my goddess temple you
cannot touch what is divine
Because divinity is untouchable
By the hands of those who’ve never honored beauty like mine
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