Walking On LilyPads

That ONE Night

PLEASE BE NOTE OF THIS TRIGGER WARNING! -Rape- If you dont want to read that, thats ok. Skip this part! Thank you! - END OF WRITER'S NOTE -

Six months later, I wound up with someone who thought they could fix me. His academic brain saw me as a project, something that was broken and desperately needed him to salvage what was left. His man-brain decided that meant he was a hero, and therefore had earned his rights to my body.

"C'mon, Lillian . . ." His long, slender body was stretched out on top of me, and he was rubbing himself between my legs, against my underwear. "You're so beautiful. Don't be nervous . . ." He leaned down and grazed the hollow of my throat with his teeth. I hated that.

I wasn't nervous. I just didn't want it.

"Um . . . C-Calvin . . ." I mumbled, unable to string words together.

He mistook my hesitance for desire and reached down, pulling aside what was in his way.

I closed my eyes and bit down on my lower lip. I didn't know how to scream "No!" at someone I didn't want to lose, so I was silent.

"I don't want anyone else . . . ever," he breathed into my ear. In his twisted mind, he thought he was assuring me that he would never cheat on me, and that was supposed to make me feel better; apparently, forcing himself on me was supposed to achieve a similar effect.

When it happened, my body tensed and began to shake involuntarily. He moaned in my ear, and I felt tears pricking at the backs of my eyes. He slid his hands over both of mine and held them over my head. My head swam, and I felt a piece of me leave that has since never found its way back. I turned my head to the side and stared at his black-rimmed glasses that were laying on the nightstand. I watched them the whole time, in the half-lit room that smelled like Axe spray-deodorant and the loss of my dignity.

I was with him for four months and then took a hiatus from dating until I was almost twenty-three. We broke up because he graduated college and moved to the east coast for work. I suppose you could say I got lucky. 

These pieces of my life are actually what got me to start writing poetry at twenty-one. I think I still have a few printed out, laying around. I actually used one as a bookmark for a while. Maybe it's still here somewhere.

Because I know sleep is off the table for the time being, I stand up and start rummaging through my belongings. I get to the third drawer of my vanity and find my copy of Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Woman stuffed in there. Sure enough, the bookmark is sticking out from the pages, all bent and haphazard. I pull out the strip of paper and flip it over, scanning the length of it to read through the piece. My friend, Olive, worked at the copy center across from the press where I did my internship and told me she would make me a bookmark if I sent her something to put on it. When I sent her this poem, she scoffed at me because of how morbid it is: "You seriously want to look at this every time you open the book you're reading? It's so depressing!"

I mean, she had a point. The last few lines are "I shatter glass upon my knee // to see if it will bleed // this is what love feels like // to me."

If someone were to ask me now what love feels like, I wouldn't be able to give them an answer. If a new man were to read the poem and ask me to recant, for the sake of feeling satisfied that he has "cured" me, I'm not sure I could do that either...