Just Whatever's On My Mind

7

I've been ruined. I've been torn down to the very last piece and built up again by collecting my pieces and using the smile and waves of kind people on the street like glue to hold me together. I've had to rely blindly on my faith that all my problems will like knots untie themselves.
I still stick my thumbs in my pocket to keep my hands from moving. I still cannot look directly at anyone who walks past me or next to me. I still cannot let a car pass me without seeing who's inside. I still cannot breathe when someone pretends to hurt someone or myself. I still cannot feel safe in the place I was raised.
I've had the clothes on my back torn off. I've been choked, stabbed, bitten, punched, bloodied up and bruised. I've had bite marks left on my body for days. I lived in a fear I never took seriously until that year. Now I can't look into the face of my best friends or any boyfriend I get without feeling a shame for being too small to fight back.
I've accepted that the word "No" from my mouth means absolutely nothing. I've accepted that sometimes I can't get the words out fast enough. Sometimes I don't say it at all, I just try to slip away. Somehow I never really get away.
I never get away from having to dig into my skin so I don't scream, or scratching my skin off so I feel clean. I never get away from the feeling I'm being watched by the people who want to demonize and control and hurt me. I never get away from the day my best friend took me up to my room to "play" and I ended up trapped in an abuse I was too young to understand and too innocent to perceive as anything other than a weird game. I never get away from the other voice in my head that whispers all the bad memories in my ear while I'm trying to be happy. I never get away from the fear that whomever I'm inclined to be in love with is using me, and would never actually want to be with me for any other reason. I'll never get away. From anything. Never.
Now all I can do when I feel these memories come to me is sit back and wait for the pain to end. I feel so horrible for making my friends feel like I'm ignoring them. I'm just trying to find a will to live. It's not that I desire death. It's simply that I cannot take two voices screaming in me at once. One keeps handing me unspeakable memories and telling me things that'll happen in the future that will kill me. The other tells the first to stop, gets on its knees and begs, and when that doesn't work, stand up and fights. There is no winner. There is only who I am.
I'm sorry friends and partners who try but can't get through to me. Sometimes I get so lost, not even I can help myself out.
   Now I'll just skim through these memories.