Sometimes I think about how I used to be able to desire sex and men and it makes me sad that I squirm uncomfortably now even for something as small as reaching for my hand to kiss it. It's been a year since I was drugged without my consent, a year since I woke up with my panties off without any memory of it or how I got there. It's been a few weeks since the last time I was abandoned by an alcoholic, but that's been an ongoing trap for 5 years and I'm still on edge because its not a matter of if he'll be back to bother me, but a matter of when.
The texts of boys who claim to want to date me continue to aggravate me, their happy enthusiasm, their pet nicknames for me that I never authorized with the term of ownership "my" which I never gave them. The way I need to repeat myself "no." "Not Tonight." "NO." "I SAID NO." Before finally needing to silence my phone because they chose not to honor or respect my reply the first time.
I hug my ex goodbye with a one handed tap on the back but if he reaches his arm anywhere toward me I dodge it like a dog who has been beaten. He laughs. I wish I thought it was funny too, I say. I close the door and look at myself in the mirror and see a broken woman.
In a way I have chosen this state to protect myself. I could pretend I'm not disgusted by men and continue to go through the motions, dating and being silently angry and miserable but for what? For an instagram couples photo I never needed to begin with?
Sometimes I think it would be nice to able to relax just once. But I have had so many experiences, I don't feel like I need one more trauma for the sake of an orgasm I can produce myself without all the drama of a man.
So this is me now. No longer half of a couple, but half of a person in a different way, because men have taken so much from me, and even disfigured my bones physically. So I have to learn to love myself the way I am now. Not the pure and open way I was, but the purely broken open way I am.
I have grieved and gathered strength. I am angry enough to keep going. I have a long way to go but I've come very far. I have undertaken the journey of growth because I want to rise far above the low place they tried to keep me. I saw what they did to my mother. I will not be another tragic story. I won't quietly fade away. I'm going to dance and sing and create for the rest of my days and no man can stop me.
11:26 p.m. - 2018-05-27