I Try, I Try

M

I still miss him.

I've come to the painstakingly slow realization that the 'him' I miss may not be the man I watch move around me when I enter that cafe. That man is not kind.

When I first met M, I was not in the mindset of dating or even possessing an attraction to men as a whole. In the front of my mind, he was the stereotypical musician working in the service industry, although his talent does allow him to periodically tour. He is intelligent and charming in a non-threatening way, but you know there's something more under that hood. I thought to myself, I've seen this guy before, and I don't even want to be his buddy. We are co-workers and I was good with that. That began to slowly shift after our first employee outing; he gave me a challenge, and I accepted. I went and I danced. The stitched together blanket of misfit toys found themselves laughing. The transition picked up speed when I found out he was experiencing a really low period in his life. I didn't want him to feel alone; he was where I've been. We began to talk about music, sadness, alcoholism and recovery, and the shitty feeling of not knowing what the fuck we were doing in life. I began to look forward to the days we'd meet outside; the cover of an umbrella being our only protection from rain or sun. I wanted to share my day with him. I began to ignore what my intuition was formerly screaming to avoid.

I remember the two days I thought, "Wow. This guy is someone else. I am wrong." The first being the day I came in so fucking sad and exhausted. I was barely hanging on to my sobriety and I was not a functioning adult. I was in survival. He turned on Taylor Swift and had put out the ingredients for my comfort coffee. I felt seen. I felt cared for.

The next being the day I was upset that Taylor Swift may not align with what is ethical. I was worried that I was wrong in continuing to listen to her music. Frankly, I imagine he gave zero fucks but I was upset and so he put in the effort. He reminded me of all the amazing things she had done during her rise to fame. We talked about where she had started from and the things she has had to endure. I felt calmer after talking to him. I felt heard.

I had thought that I was helping him when I first opened up my heart. Instead, I found myself understanding that something else was occurring. I was smiling more. Laughing felt strange and unfamiliar, but with him I floated through the weird. I was living again. He had seemingly helped me.

M seems to carry himself in a quiet confidence. I had respected that about him. He didn't seem to have anything to prove to anyone. If you ask someone who hasn't dated him, he's a great dude. My walls came down in so many ways. The push and pull kept me locked in. We spoke of the futures we envisioned. I shared my weaknesses, my desires, my fears, and my hopes. He always likes to say he isn't good at talking, but the collected hours I've spent listening would beg to differ.

One day it would feel like our future would begin, the next would leave me reeling in my deeply rooted fear of not being enough. We were by all accounts, a tale of two fools. An addict in recovery falling in love with someone who had no plan or actual desire to ever recover from substance abuse. A Womxn with trauma and low self-esteem with a man who used bodies when all else failed.

In the end I remember only feeling invisible, alone, anxious, and voiceless.

I can now live in the what-ifs or the maybes, or I can remind myself of this fact: His treatment of me changed at certain points. How he treated me before he found interest in me, there's truth in there. How he treats me now, could hold an answer.

Whether he is a lost boy or he is right where he plans to stay for the rest of his life, that shouldn't matter anymore. However, I cannot stop the piercing voice in my head that says: he is better than that. 

Whenever I exit from the place of -he deserves friendship, patience, kindness, humor, and safety- I crumble under guilt and shame.

I don't know how many people he has had who truly see him and have loved him through it all. I can't pretend to know much of anything about him anymore. What is clarity? Where was the honesty? What I do know is that I didn't have anyone who believed in me. Now I do, and the impact that has had on my trajectory is immeasurable. I still hope the man I miss is in there... somewhere. I hope he is real.

But that belief is fading as I feel myself moving further and further away from that framed painting which sat on the floor rather than being hung.

Studying Politics

As sad as it is to admit, this is the first time I've never run into the arms of distraction while feeling heartbreak.

Did it almost take me out? Yes. I entered a bar, tracing the line, almost falling back over the edge. I sit here today, still sober. Another man has not profited from my prior destruction, and because I've been pushing through, I have discovered two new eyes sitting within my skull. My ears don't just hear, they grasp the lesson. I believe what I am being shown outside of stories and paintings of possible futures; empty apologies mean nothing. What do I see and hear right now, in front of me? I pay attention and I notice how my body feels.

How often have any of us accepted treatment we've been told is normal and expected? Boys will be boys. How often can a man say something cruel while labeling it a joke? How does our reaction so often become the topic of debate?

I will continue to sit back and listen. How do people believe they can talk to me? Why? How do they talk to other people? Did the way they talk to me change as their likelihood of being fucked decreased/increased? What if they realize that likelihood never existed in the first place? Do they get resentful about a lack of payoff?

What I've learned is that a recovery program does not make someone a better human being. When a person wants to be your friend their behavior does not jump around all over the place, there is consistency at the core of their existence.

When someone wants to be your friend, they do not expect you to be their mother, maid, therapist, sexualized fantasy, and muse; who they'll most certainly replace once they are bored or find a better supply. Those who are not your friend definitely hate boundaries.

I've said it before and I'll say it again now: I have dated and held connections with those who have wanted to have a hold of me, not be with me.

And because of my time reflecting, through spirals and falls into the dark, I see more clearly now why I would have seen that as "being enough". My parents did not see me as enough. They never taught me what healthy love was. They did not love each other; they were dependent on one-another. They existed in a dysfunctional system and that system caused devastation to their children.

Keith was demanding and needy, he controlled everyone he could. He used his childhood to gain sympathy and to achieve the largest benefit of doubt. I was told he wasn't abusive. His anger and displeasure were the fault of everyone else. My mother sucks the air out of the room. There is no space for anyone else to exist. She needs to be the one cared for, protected, and carried. She stole my voice to protect her abuser, and the abuser of her children. I became who I became, a Womxn I no longer need to be.

I hope to be someone different. I've never known better, but that doesn't mean I can't be and do better.

I deserve better.

I'm going to start by healing whatever broken part of me still cries over a dude who doesn't know my birthday or how old I am, even though we spent my 34th birthday together.

It has been a long week.

from the attic

I watch them from the window
Dark figures never know how to properly end
Always leave a signature as they depart
Caution to the wind

His shadows were invited
Up to the view
Permission to strike up pleasure
An ever-present nonchalant attitude

I gave him my safe place
He wanted to own the whole cafe
I gave him my heart
He wanted to toy with my brain

He's a dirty dime in a plastic bucket
A wavering no pump chump, with nice hair
I count the change out
My copper renaissance love affair

Ask myself to breathe in then out
Beg myself to move
I stand amongst my fellows in a musty basement room
Admit my weaknesses and pain

Shoulder the shame I was given at three
Growl out the anger from when I was first seen
Tear apart my rib cage in the name of eve
He and they cannot have me

**NEED TO EDIT** 

to remember

He talked of putting down the bottle, whiskey near his arm
I believed in him then
Around the cafe; a cloud of smoke to the side of his charm
He wore that same hoodie
One syllable behind my closed mind
An open mirror to welcome the sound
He could never avoid the need for long


(TWO SEPARATE OR MAKE MORE COHESIVE?)

An evening to meet his friends
Then some backlash to his backout
Under a neon moon, a charismatic force felt smackdown
The same night I'd see him switch out
Had to jumpstart his car
His reflection left town
Reconciliation isn't one with the crowd

I tried to exit through the alley, shadows to my side
His whispered promises clasped my mind
I thought we'd be just fine
Afterall, he had said I was alright
We were a December to remember
...... (NEEDS MORE HERE)
He is a year I can only hope to forget

**NEED TO ADD/EDIT**

Emotional Irrationality

What is the truth?
There are no rules for thee
Those all seem to belong here, with me
Now holding heavy resentment for the word clarity
Late night musings bring up something, but I won't retreat

I muster laughter
at the expense of irony
Take it back
Take it back
Take me back to before that passenger seat

Do you know where I've been?
Did you listen at all to our shared dreams?
Eliciting a response from a barstool
Featuring the written words of a melodramatic dead-fool
I'm not the beast you've driven me to see

I've never been one to go down on my knees
Gifted me quiet desperation, not defeat
Do you know what I've found?
Did you see who we could be?
Everything's now familiar terrain 

There are ones who impact everyone they meet
A heavy burden and responsibility
Without heart and soul
Plausible deniability
Even while sitting in the driver's seat

Do you fear what I see?
Can you taste what I breathe?
There are those who choose
to avoid accountability
They break through doors and smash our walls
Leave us a mess, rinse and repeat

**NEED TO EDIT**

Hole in The Ground

I watch your name slide
further and further down
I keep my promise
I won't make a sound
I build conversations that will never be read
Like I miss you even now
Even now that I know my true pal
Or why your world blurs
Why words are used to burn
You steer that deranged ship
I beat in the sense of it,
with each and every rip
We were never meant to fit

You're a wild card with a hot rod
I am a body in someone else's bed
I build conversations that will never be said
I thought I'd never spill
Our secret love affair
I'd see things from your point-of-view
Anonymity
Respectfully
You're a lost guy, simple nod, a quiet fret
So go find your solace
Time in a church well spent
Build conversations, while spoon fed
You're in hindsight, no longer a threat

Two worlds collided
Needed a drink,
just to pretend you can think
I am who I need
and what I strive to be
I build conversations to reconnect
Can't pretend to know
Why through a tragic rage
This cycle always finds me
Terror of proximity
To come upon another blank page
Admission for one
No entrance fee

You sipped your tea until I walked down the street
A liquid substitute for who you pretended you could be

**NEED TO EDIT**

Exhaustive Time Out

I have been struggling with who I am and the things I have done to others. I can say, "Well, it was the alcohol and the drugs."

That would be a lie, and it is uncomfortable to sit with the realization that it is who I am capable of being sober or not. I am me and I am bits and pieces of those who have harmed me. I've gathered my own toxicity along the way.

When I was a little girl, I would put myself in time out when I felt I had done something wrong. I'd be way ahead of the adults in my life, maybe as means of survival or avoidance of the wrath that would surely rain down on me. I'd head to my time out chair, my bedroom, or the closet. I'd punish myself.

Is that what I'm doing now? Have I put myself in time out for being with monsters and being a monster myself? When can I come out?

Most days I don't want to return to society, but then I have these moments of heavy loneliness. My therapist has been trying to teach me about intuition and trusting myself, while also stating that I have a negative outlook on others. Who is left to trust when those who were supposed to protect you instead harmed you? Where can I turn when those I have loved and been completely devoted to, have manipulated that love and devotion?

That struggle has entered into my recovery. There is a correlation between substance abuse and Narcissism/Sociopathic tendencies. There are manipulators, users, and predators in the room. They've replaced alcohol and drugs with people. They appreciate the hierarchy (which we are gaslit about the existence of). They find a usefulness in a system put in place by white men for white men. It is in the language of everything we are supposed to read and devote ourselves too. For obvious reasons, I withhold that devotion. I've been there before, many times.

I wish there were a different way to find healing within recovery. A way that doesn't involve placing myself back in the very cage that causes harm.

As I come closer to reaching one year without alcohol, I can honestly say coming back from my relapse has been hard the entire way. I wish I had never picked up that drink in June of 2022. This time around I am unwinding myself from programming that began the moment I took my first cry in this world. It has involved a lot of pain, anger, frustration, and sitting in the discomfort -no matter what-.

So yes, I suppose I am in a self-enforced time out, because not only do I not trust others, but I also do not trust myself.

Get Out of Me

I signed the invisible contract of his
In small writing it read that my hair was too wild.
He hated it frizzy.
Flannels were meant for donation and not for wearing.
I wasn't in the world to make friends.
I wasn't funny anyway.
My laugh must be quiet or not at all.
I give people headaches.
My taste in music must not be shared.
I sing the same 5 songs, oh come what may?
My writing wasn't real so that must be halted immediately.
I swallowed my words until they exploded within me.
I was to be grateful he chose me.
I couldn't show I questioned him choosing me.
I wasn't like the other ones.
Was I pretty enough, or just enough mystery?
I would look forward to saying yes.
No must mean yes.
My voice became silence with no remedy.
I must give up my happy thoughts;
Turn them all into a future enemy.
I can't feel energy.
I can't move freely.
Repeat the cycle unquestioningly,
Tell my therapist it is me who is not thinking clearly.
Choking meant love,
bruising meant joking and loyalty.
I could be part of the family, but not be the family.
I was an odd duck in a room full of heavy dishonesty.
The monster was allowed to devour me.
I must say thank you and sit on the couch.
Accepting my crazy identity.

Tory Talbot Hall

We were sitting outside of your mom's back door drinking beer. You had somehow convinced me that you'd finally accepted we would "just be friends" so I came over to hang out. It had been a bit since I had pulled away. I remember laughing and joking, and me asking you where your other friends were. You had said you'd be having some friends over, yet I was still the only one there.

You texted some people and they started showing up not very long after. Were they ever actually coming? When did they leave? How did you get me into your room? A room you normally shared with your little brother.

I'm still confused about what I drank and how I ended up so completely lost on time and location of my body. Was it the beer? How many did I have? I don't remember having that many. Did you convince me to take a shot? Or was that another night? How did you get me into your room? Your little brother was at your dad's house that night.

How long did it take for you to undo my pants and start touching me? Was it before or after you began touching yourself? How long had you been touching me before I woke up? Did you expect that? Did you think I'd find the strength to stand then stumble my way down your hall?

The note on my car, when I was home. The roses on my car, when I was at work. Did you watch me? Plotting until you could make me yours.

Why were you so worried about me waking your mom up? Would she have been so easily able to explain this away if she had seen me? Does she still explain you away?

You tried to cry. Were you aiming to confuse me further? Making me think you cared about me, and that I had it all wrong? You were the victim after all; things with me were different and you just wished I could see that. Why can't the girls you love ever see that? Those things you would say about her too. Did you rape her? How many times have you done this since?

The Pelican

every note we scream his name
each times it's differently
a spoken spell of who he'd be
a quarter turn from who we'd see

a character with multiple parts
a tourist through his own self rot
taxi, it's time again
to leave his mess for us to tend

call my friend
call my friend
call my friend again

this time I'm too far gone
I've seen his stance, I've felt her charm
heard him coming home too late
certain then, he found the take

a character with stolen fate
a tourist through his own self hate
taxi, it's time again
to leave his mess for us to mend

he'll wear her clothes and steal her twirl

she'll call a friend
tell the world
we'll scream out
fear has no hold

we see their stance
feel their rot
face these men,
the broken tots

call us then
call us then
always as it should have been
we are friends
shake them out
we're ours again

WORK IN PROGRESS

Da Hui

    He came into the bar on the day I was covering a bartending shift. Normally he was loud and abrasive; he'd chug shots and do blow in the back bathroom. That day though, he was different. He was sad.

He had a book with him (a book I also owned) and he just wanted an adult hot chocolate with whip cream; lots of whip cream. I felt badly for him. That was the day things really started to change. The disgust and annoyance I had for him turned into empathy and friendship. I thought back to how he had told me about his childhood. He said his dad had hit him in the face with a hammer and his teeth never looked the same. We were drunk. I felt awful; and that was the point in which my hate for him had turned into that very disgust and annoyance which was dissipating. He picked me. Then he worked on me. He is a Sociopath.

Some of us he chose for sex and drugs. Others for a roof over his head. He loved to be seen with hot girls, so status was a known go-to. Then there were those of us that he chose because of who we represented to him. The drugs, alcohol, and attraction were there too, but he sucked our life-force from us. Of those womxn some of us were told he would kill us. Some were drugged and boozed up beyond cognition.  Some of us almost died. All of us were assaulted.

It took me until far too recently to be able to say, "He raped me." I fell in love with a monster. That's the healing that I can't get through.

I can work through the choking, the twisting of my arms behind my back, the fear of being stabbed; what I can't work through is how in the fuck I went from hating this person to losing my consent, my health, my sanity, and my self-worth. How did I fall in love with this man?

I got off work that day, and I started to sit with him more and more. He told me he was pretty sure his girlfriend was cheating on him. He loved her so much and he just wanted her to be happy. This always happened to him. He was always cheated on. And I started to trust her less and less.

Another thing I can't seem to move on from. She had tried to warn me, but I didn't understand how good he was at lying. I didn't think I would ever date him. I was dumb before I ever loved him.

I'm sure my therapist wouldn't like me writing that, but it's the only thing I can think.

I'm a fucking idiot. It's the thought that always comes back no matter how much time passes. Especially when I'm bombarded with memories, and I see them as they really were and not how he wanted them to be seen.

I Write

Too much coffee

Too much weed

Whatever can keep me from thinking of you

Coming to the end of the sugar from our home

Nights and days, they're all the same

No longer on that bench,

just another couch

Someone pushed my shoulders up the other night

Asked me what I was reaching for

So I'm going to write something

something about you

maybe one day it will be a song

my stage and lights up bright

for you

thank you

thank you

thank you

allowed to be free is now my choice to see

all of that anarchy

gave me glory

love got me sober enough

gave me a story

got me back, to here and there

back to you again

I rip up the pictures, walk to the next home

thank you

thank you

thank you

allowed to be free is now my choice to see

you never would have loved her

you never loved me

free, free, free

love got me sober

never about you

it was me

thank you

thank you

thank you

no need for your permission

now my choice to see

that I was always free

He taught me that it was me.

Not everything is about me.

My roommate has been off these last few days, and I've been in panic. Has my leaving of rinsed dishes in the kitchen sink pissed her off. I've been super depressed, and I communicated that to her. We tried to communicate everything we could before moving in together. Our boundaries and needs. Some shit to expect. I fucked up. I fucked up. She is pissed at me. She hates me. I fucking suck. My cat has been annoying too! I spiraled.

So today I talked to her. I asked her if there was anything she needed to talk about. I asked if she was upset with me. She said she's going through shit. I know she has anxiety and suffers with depression. I know she lost a friend to suicide right around this time of year. I know she is seeing family for the holidays. I know she is discovering herself right now. She has her own shit. 

I don't know why I think it's about me. Everything in my life, when someone is upset: It's because of me. Am I self-centered? Is that why I blog? Do I write because I love to write or because I want to feel tall? Am I a Narcissist? Am I a Narcissist who is attracted to Narcissists? Who did my dad make me? Who have I let myself become?

Am I bad like him?

I'm o-fucking-kay.

    I have been having issues with my car. I have cried because it was the shit icing on a shit cake. I have felt disappointed in my luck. I have chain smoked about it. What I haven't been though, is furious. I haven't been alone. And what a fucking difference that has made. See, I believed that I was a shitty girlfriend because I handled stressful situations badly. Yet, all of those situations were me doing it alone. I had to beg for any effort shown from my ex. Labor on top of labor; that sums up my time with him. So yes, I yelled and screamed and threw things. I was taking care of me, I was taking care of us, I was taking care of our home, I made sure the bills were paid on time, I took the car to the mechanic, I made sure the parts we needed were purchased, I took care of keeping our cupboards filled, and I was taking care of him; all while he treated me like shit. I didn't know he was treating me like shit at first, then I knew but shoved it down because I loved him and I just knew he was a good person deep down. Then I knew he wouldn't change but I couldn't leave, every time I tried it felt like I had cut out a piece of myself. It was worse than withdrawal from cocaine and booze. I was addicted to him, and he had made sure of that early on. 

Sometimes I wonder if his "wingwoman" isn't also an awful human being. Did she help him plan it? She gave me Molly and encouraged me to text him after a break-up to a dirtbag. She left us alone even though she usually hung out late. She gave us comfy clothes and said we could listen to music. Music. I had always thought we had bonded over music. We had sung karaoke together when we were co-workers. I thought he loved the same bands as me. So imagine my surprise when all of a sudden, he didn't love karaoke and never wanted to do it. And he stopped listening to music with me. He started shit talking what I listened to. I started not listening to music as much because we were always together and I didn't want to hear him say mean things and honestly, I was scared to let him know what I liked because he would make me feel stupid about it. I stopped writing because he said poetry wasn't talent and I never showed him what I wrote from before I stopped writing. So imagine my fucking surprise when a survivor of his wrath informed me that one of the things, he told her was that he wrote and loved writing. I didn't see him write a damn thing for the entirety of knowing him. Even cards he gave me were quotes from movies or TV shows I loved. Looking back, I know it was all filthy lies. Everything he does is a lie. He has played so many characters that I don't even know if he knows who Zackary (Zachary) Andrew Couch is.

What a sad existence that must be.

I however had car issues today. I said to my supervisor "It's gonna be okay. I'll figure it out tomorrow." It had been a long, hectic night at work and still I felt acceptance that I couldn't do a damn thing about it. Even now I feel a sort of calm. I'm poor, depressed, anxious, and struggling with my sobriety. Yet I am still doing better than I ever was following him around.

It’s going to be okay.

Charlie St. Cloud (10/23/2022)

 I needed to cry. I keep having these blocks. Like I get stuck. I can't proceed forward, and I can't necessarily look back. I fixate on one moment, shut down, don't feel anything and do not move forward. I don't want to feel and then I detonate. I relapse. I cry, but I don't fully feel it. It's survivable. It's a pain I am familiar with. Then I start again, trying to take on more pain this next time around. How many relapses do I have left in me? I cannot answer that. I just know I am getting closer to the edge. I'm growing familiar with the idea of my death. I roll it around and ask a new question each time. Getting the same answer: I don't want to go on anymore.

Then I get these glimpses of moments. Moments that I am smiling about. I should feel completely happy. Something isn't there. I am prepared to watch it fall. Nothing real feels that swell. Anytime I've let myself go; I've been wrong. Happiness isn't a guarantee. It's an option that I know nothing about.

So they used drugs. They controlled my emotions and latched onto my traumas. They made me their mommy, their daughter, their maid, the step-mother to their children, the wallet, the pocket pussy, the moldable plaything, and their "best friend". They wanted to play on the deepest most dangerous emotion: devotion. An emotion I've come to see as love, just like my daddy trained me.


DAMN. I found that tonight and that is rough to read. Sometimes we forget these moments. That's why my therapist told me to write when she found out I'd stopped. She told me to start writing again and when I started writing again, I finally got out. Our thoughts are poison. Our trauma will kill us if we don't get it out. And if we don't talk to anyone then abusers will abuse us for as long as they can. We get killed or we fade away until we become hollow. We can even end our own lives due to the pain forced upon us by men.

And I found this months ago. So the colder months have always been harder. I am so glad I have things to go back over. When I can finally afford therapy again this is going to be really important. I am seeing patterns in myself. I am hoping this will help me better understand what leads me to relapse and the suicidal ideation.

October 13th, 2019-October 13th, 2022

    The day before I prepared to leave from California, I told my therapist that I was fucking scared. I told her I was scared to come back here. I was scared I was going to fuck up. I told her my biggest fear was that I would relapse. I told her I couldn't relapse because of Zackary. He wasn't worth all of that time I'd gathered. She told me that I could do it. She said she believed in me. She said a relapse would never mean she didn't believe I could do it.

I didn't relapse because of Zackary. No, it was after getting punched in the face while protecting a child, after losing my best friend, and after finding out my "dad" had died and that my mother had found him in their closet. Then going to a funeral for a person I never got the chance to talk to about the impact he had on my life. I lost my path to forgiveness. Not for him, but for myself. Then after realizing that still, to this day, nobody truly cares about what he did to me. I have to forgive my family. It's heavy. It's fucking hard. And yes, Zackary, but he didn't cause me to relapse. He just gave me a reason to cry once I did.

Today was a really fucking hard day. I should have made it 3 years. Today I wanted to drink. That's how fucking devastating alcoholism+trauma is. It's why I don't know if I'll ever be okay. Too much has happened. Too many people have entered my body without permission. I've been torn from for too long. I wish I could say something helpful to whomever could one day come across this.

I just don't know if there is anything to say.

-D

It Started with Nick...

October 13th, 2022; what was supposed to be three years without alcohol and my drug of choice. To understand today, I need to understand what led up to October 12th, 2019.

So I'm starting with him. Before him, sure I had dealt with boys wanting to have sex with me. My second "boyfriend" cheated on me because he knew I wasn't ready to have sex. So did my third "boyfriend".  Nick though, he was my first relationship. He discovered me when I was 15, quite close to being aged like a rotting egg. He saw me before I ever saw him. It was before my sophomore year had even started. Me and my best friend at the time had shown up to find our lockers and get our schedules. We were so excited and definitely goofing off. I remember us laughing. That's what caught his attention. The senior boy across the lawn was drawn to my innocence and my fun. So he waited.

In my first few weeks of school, he'd stand outside the band room. The same place where he first saw me. He'd watch me. I noticed this but didn't think much of it. I was busy with my friends. I was enjoying what little time I had with them before I'd be required to arrive home. I was free, but it never could last. My "dad" kept track of when I got home from school.

The day he first came over he ignored me and talked to my best friend. He later told me he was trying to make me jealous. It didn't work. So jokes on him, he had to work harder. He used MySpace to do just that. We began to send messages back and forth. It was his playground. His personal obsession (whom we shall call Nicole) became my obsession. He constantly told me why I could never be her. She was also younger than me. This went on for all of my sophomore year and into my junior year. The back and forth. He liked me, but I was his fourth choice in his ranking system. Yet, I stuck around waiting for his breadcrumbs. I can't explain to you what that poor part of myself was allowing or why. It doesn't make sense to me even now. He'd never date me, just absorbed my affection. So I started talking to other boys, and he didn't like it. When "my virginity" was coerced from me in the back of another older boy's car, he decided to make sure I knew that I was a slut and not pure enough for him. He would send me this dude's picture randomly via Instant Messenger. He knew I was having a hard time processing what had happened to me. He didn't care about that. He only cared that it wasn't him. He resented me for something that I never wanted in the first place.

He went away to college, failed out, moved back to Utah County, and then all of a sudden: he wanted to date me. I was finally chosen. And I had to make up for the fact that I was "not a virgin". Him dating me was a gift and it was made very clear that he was better than me. I believed him.

I believed him for a very, very long time. Years after, I would still think: If I could have just been enough. If I could have just figured out how to be better.

That’s all for tonight… fuck.

Almost 32

More and more 

people who party 

are moving 

into the apartment complex.

This is going to be another test. 

Can I sit through loneliness? Can I one day be by myself without the constant fear of never being happy, and okay? I tell myself that "drug friends" can never be real friends, but I've met some pretty amazing people. I think we always ended up talking because we were there for some of the same reasons. We just didn't want to be alone, because it hurt too much.

Am I able to pass up the excitement of meeting a stranger and having a magical moment? I don't know if Disney movies fucked me up. You hear people talk about that shit. No, I think all of the Romantic Comedies prepared me for my idea of "Love". If a boy is mean he likes you. The bad boy always reforms and falls head-over-heels-in-love with the wallflower. There are meet-cutes, and they never lead to anything truly awful, outside of hilarious drama. And in the case of Enough (my favorite movie when I was a young girl) you end up like J-lo and you kick the abuser's ass. You beat them at their game.

Do I wish I could go over there and make friends, if only for my nights off? Sure. That's an old part of me that I must dig out. The fact that I'd rather escape than deal with what sits inside of me, it's a hard spot. Every time, (which is often) that someone in AA talks about how they drank for fun and shirking off their kids, families, commitments; I think: Geeze, that must be nice. I drank to escape myself. I stopped feeling comfortable in my body at such a young age, I was never allotted boundaries, and the trauma kept piling on. 

I don't know if I will ever be okay. Which is all the more reason I should get used to being with myself. I don't ever want to be the monster in someone else's story. I don't want to see my father. I don't want to belong to Nick. I don't want to be Camron. I don't want to think like Parker. I don't want to be as broken as Zack/Zach/Zackary.

And quite frankly, I don't want to be anything like most of the people I have dated. That's fucking sad.

I’ve often been alone.

30 Days

People expect me to move on, I'm sure. I don't know how much longer I can talk about Z before everyone gets sick of it and I become isolated all over again. Going public with his name and my experiences has just led to more people coming out about things he has done. It hasn't stopped. For most it's a sign of solidarity but that solidarity will only last for as long as a FB status stays visible. For me, it never goes away. Every damn time someone comes forward about something else he has done I feel stupid, pathetic, and either devasted or filled with rage. I feel sick. My brain is decaying. I can barely hold on to information and I always forget what the fuck I was about to do. I stopped crying. I know I need to cry but once again something has shifted inside of me.

I know this means he is getting everything he ever wanted. He feeds off of destruction. It doesn't matter that I know this. It does not matter that I am far away from him. It doesn't matter that he will never touch me again. I still feel him on me. I feel him inside of me.

I can't peacefully exist knowing he is harming someone else. How am I supposed to move on? How has he gotten away with this for so long? A part of me already knows that answer. It's because of people like me. We believe him. We fall for whichever character he decides to play. He finds people who want to be loved and he gives just enough, but not too much. Z hates to give anything. It was the hidden violence that gave him life.

He used to take my arm and twist it behind my back and push it up until my shoulder would almost pop out. Afterwards, whenever the pain showed up, I would say it must be from sleeping on the couch or from wearing a bra. That's how fucking broken I was. It's a gift I carry with me today, the pain that won't go away. When I'm stressed or I've been lifting something "too heavy" I am reminded of how I couldn't fucking understand then, but I do now.

One day I noticed he wasn't paying attention and I grabbed his arm and twisted it behind his back and pulled up, just hard enough that he couldn't move. He was so angry and annoyed that I had the control. I didn't even hurt him. He was just stuck. Under my grip. For less than 10 seconds, and those are the seconds that help me hold on. When you come at him head on, you see him for who he really is. He is weak. He is familiar with his darkness, and he is okay with that. He's okay with empty promises because he is empty. I don't know if he was born that way or if he was made that way.

All I know is I won't ever completely understand why, and I have to be okay with that.

I made it 30 days.