A losing war against yourself
“I think you love me,” I tell him.
He laughs. “You think I love you?”
“Yes.”
“Alright,” he says, “so I love you. So what?”
I’ve been fighting for most of my life. A losing war against myself.
But certain kinds of trauma, they can fundamentally change you. Throughout some experiences, your entire self can get ripped apart. You might not even notice. You might get so good at pretending that it’s not until months later that you realize you’re a shadow of the girl you once were.
He was sweet, and persistent, and funny. You started hooking up. It turned into dating. He was older, and more experienced, and made it clear that he knew how things ought to go. It’s all so textbook. He made you happy. And then he would press bruises into your skin. Force your legs apart while you tasted saltwater.
The anger was the scariest. You never knew when it would come, or what it would create.
You find you have to relearn the basics. You don’t know how to trust. You don’t know how to say no. You don’t know how to react when someone yells, or jerks, or frowns. You’ll always be haunted and no one will love you, no one but him, just like he told you.
You’ve gotten very good at pretending. Even after you realize, you keep going. You don’t have a choice. A girl who wears her skin bloody and torn open revealing bruised organs and shattered bones will get crushed.
You still crave love. You still crave affection, and comfort, and kindness. But you know these things are fleeting, and that people who love you will hurt you very badly. You know these are inseparable.
You have a target painted on your back. You can’t recognize the danger signs. Or maybe you run headlong into dangerous situations.
You long for safety. You don’t always know it. Often when you first find it you break again fresh, your skin tired of being knit together everything spills onto the ground and you don’t understand—
How could he do that to me? How could he love me, and unmake me?
You get better. You get worse. You get better at faking. You get worse at telling the difference. You keep living (or you don’t). The thought of death become a comfort.
You wonder if you’re still capable of love. You wonder if you’re still capable of being loved. You wonder if there’s anyone in the world who can fit with the gory, loathsome, frightening (frightened) thing you’ve become. You wonder if you deserve anyone. You wonder if being alone is your prize, in the end, or your penance, for not knowing better. Because no matter how much poetry you write about it, no matter how much therapy you attend, you will never get to leave this behind. You loved him, and he abused you, and he raped you, so many times, and those scars don’t vanish.
Because you have to fight to make a life worth living, and you’re very tired of fighting. You have to fight to make a life that’s more than just surviving.
I’d like to say you live happily ever onward, but I don’t know yet.
-Maia
