Saturday, December 1, 2012

Do you even realize what you're saying? Do you even care?

Can your parents look at you without feeling they have completely failed you? Do your enlightened friends tip-toe around the subject, as if you’re now a piece of glass that may shatter at the slightest touch? Is there a thick brick wall between you and the world so that no matter what you say, it’s always a foreign language?

Did it steal your childhood innocence away in a matter of minutes? Did a car drive by and not even stop? When girls cackle about their “first time” and “OMG, my V-Card” do they fail to see the irony when you spit, “I still can’t ride a bicycle.”

Do you hate yourself for thinking somehow it was your fault? Do you sometimes feel guilty as if you made the wrong decision only to feel guiltier for ever blaming yourself? Do the scars remain as permanent physical evidence of the tragic endeavor? Did he laugh as you squirmed under the wide pan of his stomach?

Was it literally stolen from you? Is your body nothing but a source of pain? Are their particular movements, hues, sounds, anything that can send the whole act replaying in your mind? Do certain scenes spin around and around in your mind like a carousel? Does the spinning never stop? Are you always always always dizzy with memories? Do you play music so fucking loud when you’re in the shower so no one can hear you screaming? Do you abrade your own flesh until you bleed in the thought that maybe; just maybe, you can somehow bleed it all away? Is their a constant film of disgust daubed about your being? Are you in a perpetual fight with your body because you feel like you have failed it? Are you obligated to tell anyone who touches you, both now and in the future?

Oh, what’s that? Yeah, I didn’t think so. I guess your finals didn’t “rape” you. I suppose your team’s big lost was not equivalent to being “raped.” When your teacher accidently bumps into you in the hallway he is not “practically raping” you. Rape is not an expression or hyperbole, it actually exists and happens, to real people, all the time.

1 comment:

  1. A powerfully written piece. Unfortunately this is something I am working towards removing from my vocabulary. As your entry rightly identifies it is a horrendously atrocious experience for someone to endure. By using it for such trivial contexts we not only risk causing a trigger reaction but it also trivializes those who are raped.

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