Wednesday, May 10, 2017

Saying Goodbye to April

One hundred feet away I am an enticing splash. Two feet away I am slow drying cement. The grubby hands of uninvited schoolchildren fight each other for space, begging to declare they were here. This is my first taste of desperation.

In a December 2012 circle, I could not cry. New and naive, I still believed we'd met again. Who we are at seventeen should not define who we are for the rest of our lives. I imagine a prettier April. Lighting a cigarette in my parent's living room, I am careless, the coffin nail burning a perfect circle in blue sweatpants. Across the street, I climb atop a small horse. Galloping, my inner thighs bruise with familiarity. My pony calls this learning and all the men in the audience agree. Achey, I enjoy the pain of forced adulthood.

I was eighteen the first time I remember being mistook for a prostitute. In lilac cutoffs and a tie-dye t-shirt, my tips from a busy summer day spill onto a gas station counter. "Be careful out there honey. You are so young." Her voice quivers with pity as she beckons her co-worker. Afraid of my youth, the sweet nectar of a freshly untethered sexuality, the second store clerk scolds, "But you're so pretty."

A man, circles his car. "Where's your daddy, baby? You got a boyfriend?" Finger licking the shadow of a harness, my knobby knees carry me, sprinting, up a flight of white stairs until I am back in my room for the night. Climbing into bed, having nothing to grasp onto but myself, I pulled at my own orange hair and scream. An observer glued to a story in which I am not a character, a tragic symbol for a pain I've never known, I bend over to vomit. I should of cried when I said goodbye.

The Rabid

Read through every word you have written in the past eight months
blinking at yourself in the mirror, every night for eighty days
could you look at me and still declare, "Humans are very genuine creatures"

I was gritting my teeth and panting
when they examined my body without seeing me,
in their glances they said, "It's time to put her down"

Myself, I imagine pushing you down a flight of stairs
so violently, your upper lip splits
my fury petting me like a lap dog
howling in my ear

They found me, the perfect rabid
uncompromising and covered in drool
damning everything within reach

I have dreamt of pushing ten people
down a flight of stairs only to say,
I have arrived.

Tuesday, April 18, 2017

The Fantasy of Uniqueness

Spring 2017.  

A woman I call mom always when I'm talking about her and never when I'm talking to her inquires about a new him. When I tell her I do not trust men who have not suffered, she knows I am lying. This time, I do cry.

Fall 2016.

Saturday night's look: eight months off crystal & dating a trucker. I'm embarrassed and too sober until a rich girl in glasses shoves a plastic cup full of a Celiac's disaster into my hand. You look real pale and smell like sadness. Rich girl won't stop talking; you take the cup. Clean shaven, he looks a lot like this musician I was really into when I was 15. I wonder how many people tell him that, but then remember the type of people with whom he surrounds himself. Your pop culture is not my pop culture.

No grit. No edge. Cliche, no - predictable. 15 year old me went on a walk; 21 year old me wants to go home, but doesn't recognize the way back to campus. Mutual disinterest. I'm switched out for a sorority girl whose blond hair doesn't come from a box. No longer giddy on a turquoise couch, traded in red Colorados for black Audis, pink ribbon laced creepers for black booties and called it a recovery. How scary it is to think I've healed.

Through an SMS screen I learn that you're "terrified" of making moves on girls.

January 2017.

So terrified that your loneliness becomes my responsibility. So terrified that you remind me that my body is too woman to really mean anything. Too woman to be considered a threat. Against a '06 Pontiac Grand Prix my arms blossom into the dead wings of a cork-pinned moth. My PTSD, your victory lap. Through torn stockings and a semen stained dress that now resides at 201 West North Street, I learn that you are what is terrifying.

Do rapists remember the women they rape? Are we hand selected and groomed for meeting some sort of baseline criteria? Or is it like a video game, with our various identifiers equating to various scores? +50 feminist! +200 acquaintance! Your high score dependent on my tears, I am what must be conquered before entry into the next level.

February 2017. 

A bored and exhausted woman asks for what feels like the hundredth time, "Are you going to class?" What a privilege to be annoyed rather than petrified. I begin to wonder if I have an identity outside of academia, but the thought is fleeting. "I believe something happened to you," and like that, I remember exactly who I am: a series of holes waiting for a baseball bat. "In high school I used to shoot two grams of heroin a day and here I am." That shuts her up. Attendance, as if that's the ultimate indicator of one's sincerity.

In the library, I pretend not to be afraid of you. "You're smarter than the other two. I've got a special plan for you." My spit on your face is nothing compared to your cum on a red chiffon dress. Shame that I wasn't wearing blue. Monica Lewinsky jokes make better punch lines than rape poems.

A new man, older, wearier, leans over a porcelain sink, thick hair pouring into the basin below. It’s like I have ADD, only for people. "Why do you always look like you have a question?" Why does all sex taste like breaking and entering?

Blondie calls to say me too.

March 2017.

I am walking into work when I become a stock character in a story that will always be yours. Most days I am more victim than survivor. A drain clogged with too much emotional baggage, I spend more time in the Title IX office than I do being conscious. There are days I want people to believe me more than I want to be alive. I'm making yet another scene in the mouth of trauma.

April 2017.

I spend a weekend in Detroit responding to a report of an incident you'll tell your mother never happened. To my twenty six pages, you'll spend 12 minutes misspelling my name in a series of nine sentences.

I fell in love with every pretty thing, but now know better than to pursue it. That makes him a hero & me a tragedy.

Saturday, April 15, 2017

Woo! The aftermath.

It's 1:58pm on a Tuesday and I'm not late when I see one of my favorites out of the corner of my eye. I'm fumbling with outdated technology and am too ashamed to acknowledge his existence. When a woman with whom I have worked for four years suggests I only like two things I want to cry, but upon further consideration, realize her statement is more a reflection of herself than it is of me.

"You should think of what it does to a person when you tell them something like that."
She's afraid she's offended me and wedged behind nervous laughter, declares that she's convinced I like her too. I suppose she has allowed me three things now. Switching between two armors, I am distracted by my own daydreams. There are so many beautiful ways to die. Like a tipsy schoolgirl, I nearly trip, and giggle myself out of the room.

In an office with two black bags, she asks what I think of a new him. I tell her I do not trust men who have not suffered. She says I don't trust any of them. This time, I do cry.

Freshmen year, a roommate who studies frogs, "You're always angry and you smoke too many cigarettes." Same year, but this time a boy, on two different occasions, "You'll never be happy." and "Stop internalizing." This inspires me. I stop smoking so as to not be like him.

Two summers later a Navy brat confirms, why yes, he has not seen me smile all weekend. I tell him perhaps he has not given me anything to smile about. He considers himself charming.