You hurt me in a way that I would have never foreseen. Control, alt, delete scene from my brain. Pushing myself to sit through classes, knowing you sat directly two seats behind me. I wondered if you traced, retraced your thoughts to find me on the living room floor or bathroom.
My eyes strained through the work that should have been done in those last two weeks. But you spoke, and anger rushed through my core being.
I mean, don’t you remember what you did?
Or were you just too drunk and stumbled on that fact that you took something I can’t have back? I can’t retract the memory of the pain and pressure I felt.
The pressure from the force. You forced my skin to stretch and tear in ways to accommodate your dick inside of me.
I don’t think my body reacted how I expected, but you said, damn she is wet. Wet? I don’t get it. My mind twirls in and out of darkness. Look at this, man, I hear. She is tight. As I lay on back, too intoxicated to move.
The room grooves and swirls with me. Please let me get up. I feel sick. Stop this. I move to the swirls of the room. I make it to the bathroom to release the content inside of me from both ends.
You win! I’ll die like this. Misery. I can’t even cry like this. Blacked out to wake up in my own shit.
How will I ever get over this? How will I ever face the day when my mind can’t even comprehend what this means? I was too drunk. I made a choice. Is it my fault? This is my fault.
I walk through life with many others who have faced the same thing. Afraid to share, to speak, because it was me. I could have made better decisions, but that still didn’t give you the upper hand to fucking decide for me.
I’ve lied, you see.
Just so people wouldn’t know that it happened to me. So I don’t have to explain, replay the memory in my brain. I mean, really, who would believe me anyways, compared to your statute?
You’re married now.
You know what you did. And you never even apologized. Because the way you hurt me took six years to talk about. And for me to finally say it wasn’t my fault!
NAKED
The Rhythm and Groove of It. The Depth and Length to It.
By Nastashia Minto
Eldredge Books. $27.
Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Purchase on Bookshop (which supports independent bookstores and Survivor Lit) or anywhere books are sold.
