*TW: mentions of Sexual Assault*
I wish I had known. I wish the shows and movies would've shown that recovery is not always a linear path. It is not all grief or all anger or even complete separation. It is all of it and none of it. It's fighting the feeling that what happened, even did. It is convincing yourself, and being scared to try the same with others. It is hearing that she was not believed and thinking maybe you won't be either. It's knowing what to feel and when to feel it. It is choking down your fear that first time seeing him again. It is pretending for a moment, that he did not hurt you. That he exists just as perfectly untouched in your mind as before, that he is irrelevant and unworthy of even that change. Nobody ever says how hard it is to do that. That sometimes I must see him and smile and pretend that he did not change the way my hands hold my face. To know that you can never steal back what he took from you, but caging your arms against yourself to stop from trying anyway. I must allow my pain to escape in thinly veiled hate and whispered reminders. They never say that more than anything, he took away your choice. I can tell no one of what he stole, lest his actions steal more from my life than before. They never say how hard it is to not tell your mother. That you are not the same daughter she sent away that week, you are sore from a pain you cannot show her. To know that she would hold you, rock you back and forth, let you be her baby for those seconds of grief, if you did tell her. But knowing that her sword would cut more than just him (that your scared it would cut you too). They never say how hard it is to not tell your little sister. To never reveal the extent of why she should stay away. To feel defensive and cautious of her, and want to encase her in bubble wrap so he can never even look at her. To want to protect her the way no one had done for you (or even knew to). They never say how hard it is to tell your big sister. To allow her into your pain, for even a moment. To be scared beyond reason that she will see the cracks he left in you. That she will tell you that they came from your hands, that his did not leave such holes from such little touches. That she will tell you what you've been telling yourself. That it wasn't that bad (she doesn't, though). They never say how seemingly effortless it is to let others hate him as much as you do (as much as you always will). How easy it would be to let others fight this battle for you. To know that you could allow them to create a barbed wire fence around you that will tear him apart if he tries to cross it (let him bleed back the price of his theft). They never say how the guilt eats you alive. The fear that someone else will suffer if I do not speak out (the knowing that others have). They never say how heavy it is, this new responsibility that you never asked for, never wanted or even considered. It is a mess you are given a bristle and a drop for. His actions, my consequences.
They never explained that sometimes healing is thinking of what he did, but knowing that it was never his to touch (It is my body, mine). Healing is letting others hold you, letting their hands make new trails over his trodden paths. Healing is smiling at your beautiful skin, seeing whorls of color instead of black tar. Healing is sometimes thinking you are better (and accepting that you are not). It is giving yourself time, the distance needed between the wound and the scar. Healing is knowing you will heal. I wish someone had told me. No guidance around it, the only way over is simply through.
YOU ARE READING
Lost In My Head
Poetry"This is something that I hope no one will ever see, because this one thing..... Just this once, I wish to treasure for only me" ★★★★★★★★★★★★★★ A book of poetry and prose, and the general musings of my fucked up mind
