Today, I will talk about…
RAPE
I wish I could give it more spaces.
I am a coward. I am unworthy. It has been 14 years and I haven’t spoken publicly about my truth. I am terrified right now. My fingers can’t even reach the keyboard.
Welcome to my life. My beautiful life on Instagram, but my pain within.
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I wake up with the struggle to open my eyes and lose myself. It wasn’t a nightmare; I’m not okay. I long to be the woman I was at 21. I was beautiful, smart, hopeful; one man took that away from me. And he never paid.
I do with a life sentence: with judgment, secrets, and shame.
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I woke up in a University of Michigan hotel room after a night out during my senior year of college. I had a few drinks; but I was by no means drunk. I was dressed in a short skirt and tank top; (what men like to categorize as “slutty” to affirm their behavior).
I was dressing for myself.
I was drugged. I remember having my Cardinals hat because it was October during playoffs. My body was stiff as I woke up; yet my eyes could snapshot the world. There was a gun on the table. I was paralyzed.
Light as a feather; stiff as a board. I felt like I was in a nightmare. It was real.
I reached for my Cardinals hat and I kept missing it. For some reason that symbol of comfort and home kept moving away from me. I wanted it to be a magic hat, but it mirrored my future. It was escaping me. I couldn’t get it back.
I heard running of water in the other bathroom and I could sense somebody was there.
The sound of water dripping was eternity.
I couldn’t find my feet; I grabbed my hat. My arms were powerful in the moment. I rolled off the bed and crawled and heard the water stop. I froze.
I knew HE heard me. I managed to put my hat on my head.
A maid knocked on the door and cracked the door open just as I crawled towards her. I couldn’t see her because the hat blocked my view. I looked up and used my hat to silence her.
She understood me. That was unusual.
#metoo, she almost said to me.
HE opened the bathroom door as the maid grabbed me and pulled me out and hid me.
Women holding women protect one another. HE went back in the room in silence.
I started crying with no tears. There were MORE tears to come.
She and the others placed me in their bin, and rolled me to the stairs. They eventually helped me get a cab. I never reported it. I stopped talking to my parents for two months. I told them eventually.
14 years later; and I still look at my face with shame.
I still hope that tomorrow morning I will wake up and see the same beautiful, pure girl I once was.
Instead I wake up to a ballcap and gray hair looking up with jaded eyes and hoping that someone can blind me with innocence.