Cage of Violation

I tug down my overly large gray sweatshirt as I walked down the street, pulling my ball and chain along with me. Everywhere I go, it seems as if everyone's gaze is on me. As if they know. I can keep blaming myself for what happened, I know that. The air was suppose to be cool, but right now I couldn't stop from feeling suffocated. Since then I haven't been able to fully breathe. I can't let myself breathe. This air is his air and I can't have it inside me again. Looking around, I saw a group of preteen girls focusing all of their mustered attention on making themselves look sexy. They fixed their mascara and hair, and batted their lashes at passerby men twice their age. I ball my hands into fists again, focusing on breathing through my nose slowly. It was happening again. Looking around desperately for a bench or anywhere not close to the mass on the sidewalk, I brought my arm to my face and began to breathe in my own lavender laundry scent. The colorless buildings began to spin round me, blurring together their hues of grays. I needed to get away. My stomach held a boulder and I felt like Hell was reaching up through the dirty concrete and wrapping it's claws around my bruised waist to bring me down. I began to run down the sidewalk. Now there were eyes on me. I couldn't keep my fists from shaking uncontrollably. I stopped suddenly in the middle of the crosswalk, my tangled hair obscuring my vision as a car screeched to a halt next to me. I continued my escape and finally found an alley. I leaned against the rough bricks and looked up at the sky, letting my finger tips run across the smashed up, discarded, used, ruined rocks. I was supposed to be studying for my Government final right now, texting my best friend about the date she had last night, hell, even worrying about getting myself a date. How did I get here, worrying if I was ever going to feel clean again? Worthy of friend, a date? I can't even think without feeling disgusted with myself. No one will ever want me and I never even had the chance to be wanted. I didn't notice I was crying until I looked down at my black streaked gray shirt.

I wiped under my eyes, not worrying about makeup since I stopped wearing it, and stepped out of the alleyway, rejoining humanity and all of its terrible possessions. I continued my walk to desperation. I figured that I don't owe God a thing, but I owe more women the chance to live their lives without feeling this hatred for their bodies and spirit that I now harness. I grasped my last string of courage that has been holding me together, and walk into the police station.