4/4 - because no one says you can't write two! |
You are not the only one to have your heart shredded along with your clothes, to have your dignity torn from your body, to have been splayed open, fileted, spread and shattered. You are not the only one to have been forced as you flail panicked unable to get away, unable to accept. You are not the only one to shower under water as brutally hot as you can stand because you have already been scorched and incinerated. You are not the only one who feels as if you will never, ever be clean again or whole or safe or able to look yourself in the mirror and see the person you saw yesterday. We need to remember: they only touched our body; they hadn't the means to touch our souls. We may have been bloodied, torn asunder, but having no heart, they couldn't touch ours. We did nothing wrong-- it's all on them. We need to remember they all are not that way. We need to remember that fear can be a barbed-wire keeping us locked in as well as others locked out. We need to remember that no matter how broken, we can heal ourselves because they didn't touch our core. We can never give that power away-- it is ours. It feels so private as if one cannot mention it, as if there were some shame involved. There is -- but it is not ours. Difficult to breech the wall, to speak out, but there is freedom in that act. How simple the saying when one no longer cares if belief is important; when it is the saying that matters. When one no longer is afraid to point a finger and accuse of the unmitigated violence against a stranger. To be on a witness stand and see eyes full of derision, smile mocking; to hear words denigrate the experience, accuse of complicity, insinuate certain actions is akin to going through it all again until you see the lights brighten behind eyes in an all-male jury and you see not pity, not scorn but shared shame, blame. Catharsis in hearing guilt pronounced, in seeing mocking smile flatten. Yet, there is no joy, no revenge, just peace. Vindication. Retribution. Healing. For the healing is a choice we choose regardless of courts legal or social. I was not drunk. I was not coerced. I had nothing to gain. I was attacked. Pure and simple. Not so simple, really, but it happened; I had control stripped away. I have taken it back. You can, too. Because you are not alone, and You are not the only one. |