She & Survival

The Undoing of a Beautiful Mind (Part 1)

I don’t know how I’m not crazy, I mean I am crazy to a certain degree. I mean…insanity is doing the same thing over and over…which I do, do. I mean I’ve been hospitalized a couple times in my lifetime…I mean like a mental institution. But, really…I don’t know how I’m not full on crazy.

I was molested, you know…like full on grown-man-having-sex-with-a-child-molested. I was, penis in my (small) vagina molested, well at least rubbed against since it couldn’t fit, of course. I don’t even know my age, but I was in kindergarten…and I know the exact places I lived and the moments it happened. I remember his breath stunk because he smoked cigarettes. One of the reasons I HATE cigarettes. I remember feeling torn between liking it and feeling dirty because I knew something was wrong…it was our dirty secret. 

I remember feeling plastic between us, I now know was a condom. I remember his questions…”Does it feel good?” I remember the bedroom…my mom’s bed, and the kitchen counter…mid-day while my mom was working or late night when she was sleep. He’d sneak in my room and tell me meet him in the kitchen…in the darkness. 

I remember I learned to ride a bike at the first place he molested me. I remember I had hamsters at the second place we moved to…and he molested me. And then it just stopped. 

I used to have outbursts…like crying, yelling, cursing fits when I was in elementary through middle school. I’d let it all bubble up inside of me…the secret, the anger I had towards my mom letting him stay even as he abused her, humiliated us, caused us to be homeless for almost a year (slept in a van), caused us to move state to state every year. You know, we moved so much people thought we were in the military…nope. My mom was just a flight risk.

I remember I couldn’t deal with the bullshit anymore. I remember it bubbling up like lava and spilling out. I used to write my mom letters on how I felt…this time I ended it with telling her I was m _ l  _ s t e_d…or something like that. I left blank spaces for her mind to wander…for her mind to fill in the empty spaces. So many empty…spaces…inside of me. 

She figured it out, you know. It was on a day I was actually enjoying school. And then I got called to the office…he was there with her, of course. I knew something was up. She took me to the public library and asked me about it. All I could write was s e x. Then, as if she didn’t believe me…she took me to the hospital to be “examined”. Of course, I thought to myself…they won’t find anything…he stopped some years ago. 

And that’s when it started to bubble over, spill out, like lava. I flipped out at the wrong place…a hospital. The first time I was ever admitted…involuntarily. The doctor forced his signature to replace my mom’s. I flipped because I felt no one believed me..and I was afraid to leave because I knew my mom would go back to him. I knew we would end up back at his mother’s house…where we were staying at the time…along with about 10 other people.

When I got out…about a month later, we moved to Charlotte. The same day I was released. Left the hospital and hit the road. But about a month later he was back living with us. As if she believed I lied about the whole thing. And I went back into myself again…retracted like measuring tape, quicker than I had been drawn out. 

And then I remember the place he started advancing on me again. Inviting me in the room when my mom wasn’t home, but I knew that tone and scared…I ignored him. Locked myself in my room until my mom was home…and it was safe. 

I was hanging with my friend after I had moved to a new neighborhood..the place where he started his advances again. She was my friend from the neighborhood I moved from. Her mom would always make up an excuse to not drop me off home after she said she would and my mom would end up picking me up. I found out she wasn’t going to take me home…so I called him over, and over…frantic. I wanted him to hurry up and pick me up, take me home (since mom was at work)…before it got dark. I knew when it was dark, he would advance, again. 

He finally came…and it was dark. He took his time getting home (normally, a fast driver) and stopped at Micky D’s. I guess he could sense my tension. He had the audacity to ask me if I remembered when I was younger. I started crying. He started apologizing. “I’m sorry, I though you were ready back then.” “Just forget I said anything.” And we drove home. I cried until my mom came home…and for some reason she came in my room. Asked me what was wrong and asked if he had touched me. All I could do was shake my head. He hadn’t touched me…but he confessed. They argued in my room…my mom yelled at me “Get up and face him, why won’t you face him for what he did?” 

I was curled up in the bed…shattered. 

The next day, as my brother and I left for school, I saw 2 trash bags outside the door…and I never saw him again.

So…yes, I don’t know how I’m not crazy. Well, at least crazier than I am. 

I am not your tragedy.

Recycle

I feel used

I mean I feel crumpled up and

thrown away

And retracted from the trash

Like torn paper

I mean like confetti

Beautiful and brilliant

For a moment

Falling weightless

Completely useless in the next

Dead

I feel empty

I mean I feel as full as air

And heavy

Felt but unseen, seen but

overlooked

I feel used

I mean feel not me

#7

I’m not a kid, not quite an adult. And my feelings scrambled and then solid, sturdy. My life, uncertain yet planned? Do I use companionship as not to face the reality of lonely? Can I not be alone? Do I use out of fear of being and have been used? I still anticipate love but can’t feel it. Or is the anticipation of love a false ass feeling that beats loneliness?

It always seems that the ones you don’t want contacting you find a way to; the ones you do…don’t.