Our indelible pasts|✔

sixty five - kiana

Anyone by Demi Lovato really fit the mood for this emotional chapter. The lyric video is uploaded above :)

sixty five - kiana

I REMEMBER THINKING that once I came to New York, life would be better in the sense that I would be away from my father. But it seems that I can't escape my greatest demons. I found them first in Wyatt that one night about a year since the last time my dad ever violated me. Then I found them next in Professor Chester. I was so stupid to think that moving out of LA would just solve the problem. Keep me safe.

Lately I've been using my phone less and less. It seems my Instagram and twitter feeds have been infested with 'signs' or whatever from the universe. Every other day, there's a post about how someone recently opened up about their sexual assault experiences with more and more '#MeToo' movement stories coming up on my feed.

I have no problem with the movement, if anything, I think it's incredible. So many injustices are thankfully being brought to light. My problem is that it makes me feel weak–stupid even–every time I read a new story. Just seeing all these strong women finding the will and confidence to tell their stories is like a constant reminder that I'm too much of a coward to do the same. I can't even call it what it is in my own head. I can't even accept it for what it is.

Deny deny deny, is all I do in my own head.

Noah alone knowing is already terrifying as is, telling a court, or the whole fucking world seems like too much. And my dad being one of America's most accredited lawyers just goes to show that my dad could cheat his way into innocence through his hundreds of connections if I ever decided to report him. And reporting Wyatt or Professor Chester...who's going to believe the little black girl with a substance abuse problem? The court will just label me as another person crying wolf. Then that will get me in trouble with whichever ones I report.

I just don't see any way it could possibly go well for me. Say they even put any of them behind bars, that doesn't change the fact that they did what they did to me. There is nothing that can change that. There's literally no winning for me. Especially not with a mind hellbent on ensuring I don't forget any of these moments. It shouldn't be normal to remember every detail whether sound or feel from when I was six years old when it first happened. That is way too long ago. But that day is so fresh in my head, almost like it happened just minutes ago. I don't have to look too far in my head to remember that day, in fact, I don't even need to try at all.

Sometimes all it takes is for someone to touch me the wrong way, which could be a simple hold of the waist or the warm embrace from a friend and just like that, I'm taken back to that day. Or any day of my past where I was taken advantage of. Other days, all I have to do is close my eyes at night and I'm taken back. And on really bad days, the slightest mention of the wrong name and I'm lost, trapped in my mind yet again.

That is something I can never escape from. No matter how long the bad guys are put behind bars. They've engraved themselves in my head, leaving a permanent tattoo in my brain. No sentence can erase that. Nothing can. Like I told Noah, we do live in a world where the bad guys always seem to win. One way or another, they're the winners, and us...we're the losers.

Nothing can change the fact that my sister got an abortion at the age of fucking fifteen. Absolutely nothing. So knowing this, knowing all this, it just fuels my fear, keeping me from trying to get justice. Justice for myself, but more importantly, justice for Kayla.

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If you're a victim of sexual assault and are too afraid to speak up, remember that it is YOUR story, and only YOU get to choose when you want to tell it, and to whom.