Dipping Into Together

Ch 31

No, no, no, no. Get out of my head. I don't want you in my head. Get out! Get out! I think of what Uncle said to me the first time I was in his house.

            "You have to do this, you little whore."

            You little whore.

            You little whore.

            Whore. Whore. Whore.

            I am nothing. I feel nothing.

            Stupid whore.

            Do you hear me? DO YOU HEAR ME?

            I am crying. Sobbing. Screaming. I beat my fists against the closet walls.

            Beat and beat and beat.

            "Whore! You stupid whore! What have you done? What the fuck have you done?"

            I grip my knees and cry into them, wishing that I could be nothing. A wave of exhaustion whips through me and I fall back, laying down on the closet floor. Tears run down the sides of my face and into my hair. My hands reach up, searching, searching. Gasping, my chest vibrates from the force of my crying.

            And then I am silent. My mouth is clamped shut. My arms fall back by my sides. I focus on feeling nothing. Focus on my breathing. Imagine myself being okay and smiling. Try to make all the bad go away, disappear forever. Is that possible? No, it happened. I can't make it disappear. Do I want it to go away? Do I want to go away? My head spins. I need to stop thinking. Stop. Thinking. Do it, Destiny, I think to myself. Can you do it, little whore? This is Uncle's voice in my head now. Little, little whore. Stupid bitch. Stupid fucking bitch. I blink once, twice, close my eyes. Count inside my head one...two...three... Breathe in, breathe out. Be at one with your breath. At one with the world. Soft spoken words. Sweet escapes into peace. I can do it. I can become nothing. Nothing, nothing. Less than air. No, lighter than air, maybe lighter. I hold in the air, trap it in my lungs. Try so hard to feel numb. But I'm too weak. A new feeling is rocketing through my veins. I open my mouth, stare at the ceiling. My shoulders shoot forward and my spine arches, my head falling back. A scream rips through me, and I unleash it into the dark. I scream and scream and scream, knowing that it doesn't matter how loud I scream, no one will come to take the pain away.

***

Pain is a relative thing. There are many forms. The most well-known, of course, is physical pain. You fall down and scrape your knee. You break your leg while playing soccer. You get sick and vomit so much that you think your stomach will crawl out of your mouth. But there is one thing about physical pain. Most of the time, it ends.

            But then there is a kind of pain that cannot be explained. You must experience it by yourself. Something in your mind crumbles, and you are left in a state of disbelief, gasping for the breath you never knew was so easy to lose. You cannot accept what has happened; you refuse. Anything, whether a death or rape or maybe one day you just wake up and are suddenly aware that this thing, whatever it is, is very present in your mind. Some people pull themselves out of it with a sort of determination that I must admire, and others drown, to put it simply.

            In my case, I am drowning. And I don't know if it's because or in spite of this knowledge that I manage to sink deeper. Deeper and deeper until I have forgotten what seeing light is like, start to forget what it's like not to be blind. I tremble, caving in on myself, wishing I could disappear. The closet is small and crowded, but I only wish it was smaller. My hands trail along my legs, and I wonder what it would be like to not have them. Horrible, I suppose, but then my mind drifts to leg less men and women who run marathons. Miracle people. People who beat cancer and lift cars off of children. People who have the willpower and mental strength to do what needs to be done, to rise to the occasion when the time comes.