The Big Broken Picture

Rape.
It seems like such a simple word.
A simple act.
One experience, albeit a traumatizing one.

But no.
Rape is so much more than that.

It’s the stunned silence on the other end of the phone.
It’s the bruises that will fade, but never quite disappear.
It’s his voice in your head, repeating over and over that nobody will ever believe you.

It’s the hate and hostility coursing through your veins, always trapped inside.
It’s realizing that you blame yourself, more than you could ever blame him.
It’s all the nights you wake up screaming.

It’s the hallucinations.

It’s the silent sobs that rack your body, and the blanket stuffed in your mouth so nobody can hear how broken you really are.
It’s refusing to lean on anyone because you’d rather be crushed under every. single. pound. of weight than force someone else to carry any amount of the pressure from your mistake.

It’s the blue pills, and the white pills, the green ones, and the pills speckled with red,
It’s never bothering to count how many you take.

It’s throwing up in the school bathroom every day before seventh period.
It’s the arms that hold you up because you can’t even walk to your next class on your own.

It’s the bright fluorescent lights, and the carousel room.

It’s the concerned glances of well-meaning teachers watching you stumble every time you stand up to try and turn-in an assignment.
It’s eventually not even bothering to do your assignments at all.

It’s the anger, defeat, and fear reflected on your best friend’s face because yesterday you had promised it would be the last time, but here you are again with glazed over eyes and trembling, ice-cold skin.
It’s the desperate need to be numb; to block out a pain that she will never fully understand.

It’s the guilt you feel when she’s pleading; tears running down her face, begging you to come back to life.
It’s feeling for the pills in your pocket as she speaks, and hating yourself for taking them; angry with her for never really asking you why you do it, but only telling you that you need to stop.

It’s the bliss and relief you feel when all of the chemicals finally kick in, and your brain is so fogged that it has lost the capacity to remember what he took from you.

It’s the endless nights that sleep won’t rescue you from.
It’s knowing that you won’t ever be able to escape the feeling of his touch.

It’s the contamination crawling beneath your skin.
It’s changing yourself, so that you won’t be able to say, “He did this to me.”

It’s giving everybody everything because nothing matters anymore.

It’s the word ‘whore’ carved into the flesh of your thigh.
It’s living up to the name because you know that they will just take. what. they. want. anyway.

It’s sitting on the floor of the shower and letting the tears mix with the hot water.
It’s walking past his house three years later, and still collapsing on the sidewalk.

It’s being bombarded with flashbacks, and throwing up in the middle of the street.
It’s hyperventilating so bad that you begin to see stars.

It’s seeing his face in every. passing. car.

It’s dissociating for weeks on end; never sure of what or who is real, and what’s not.

It’s being told that nobody want to talk to somebody so depressing.
It’s being told you’re overreacting;
when nobody even knows what you’re reacting to.

It’s pouring flames down your throat until the whiskey fills the hole inside of you.
It’s waking up with your face on the cold tile of the bathroom floor, and having to hack into your mom’s e-mail account to erase all evidence of another absence from school.

It’s twenty-six absences from school.

It’s begging God to let you die.
It’s hating God for allowing this to happen.

It’s four years of secrets,
Four years of muffled sobs,
Four years of internal damage,
Four years of night terrors,
Four years of self-blame,
Four years of gritting. your. teeth. to keep from confessing the truth to anybody.

…It’s the skepticism on your best friend’s face when you finally let it out.
It’s the agony that comes from the realization that he was right.

It’s being accused of lying, because if it had really happened, you would’ve gone to the police.
It’s being told that, “sluts can’t be victims.”
It’s everything the voices in your head call you becoming personified and finally. spoken. aloud.

It’s a brutal stab- straight to your already-damaged heart.
It’s giving up on life, right when it’s supposed to start.