*Content Warning: This piece contains references to sexual assault, which may be triggering to some.
It’s Spring.
I look in the mirror
Black mascara has dripped from my eyes
Painting my rosy cheeks gray.
My pink lipstick is smeared
Across the bottom of my face,
Like the Joker’s smile.
But I am not smiling.
He lays asleep in bed
Snoring soundly.
Like a baby who’s stomach
Is fully satisfied.
Next to him – beads.
Red, white, and pink.
Spread across the bed like confetti.
I touch my neck and realize that the confetti
Is my necklace he broke
While pressing his body into mine.
As I quietly sobbed,
“Stop. Please stop.”
The next morning,
I lay on my couch
In the same clothes he took off my body with such ease
But now feel like they have been duct-taped to my skin.
I lay catatonic, asking myself
“Why me?”
“What did I do?”
“Is this just a nightmare?”
I pinch my arm over and over again,
Trying to wake myself from what must be a nightmare
But as my skin turns yellow and brown,
I realize that I am awake.
I tell a friend the next day.
She tells me that I am a “survivor”.
And that this “wasn’t my fault”
But in the same breath asks,
Why I “don’t report” and
What I was wearing.
In her words I feel more victim than survivor.
Will I ever feel like a survivor?
It’s Thanksgiving dinner,
And as we sit to thank God
For the blessings he gave us this year
My mom touches my neck and asks,
“Where is the pink, red, and white necklace I gave you?”
My body shivers.
My blood turns cold.
And all my eyes can see
Is confetti.
I excuse myself to the bathroom
To lie on the tile floor
And shake until my lungs feel like they can breathe again.
I miss the prayer,
But there is nothing about this year that I want to thank God for.
I lay on the icy tile floor that feels
As cold as my blood
Wondering, if he thanked God for his year.
It’s New Year’s Eve,
And my boyfriend leans in
To kiss my pink lips
As the sparkly ball welcomes in all things new.
I want something new.
But as the screen glitters with celebration
And confetti falls from the ceiling,
I only see you.
When will I stop seeing you?
Quickly,
His lips taste like yours
And I feel like your body is
Once again collapsing my lungs.
It is everything I can do not to push my lover away.
Will I ever feel like I survived you?
It’s Spring again.
I see a woman walking towards me.
Her rosy cheeks stained gray
From her mascara
And her pink lipstick smeared across
The bottom of her face.
When our eyes meet,
She collapses into my arms.
I hold her as saltwater runs from her eyes,
And down my arms.
Her body icy,
Her lungs gasping for air in between sobs.
With my arms protecting her,
I tell her
“This is not your fault.”
“You did not cause this.”
“You are alive”
And it is here, that I realize
I have survived.
