Peace

can i walk away now and leave you there

knowing that I will never know if you were

watching the back of my head as I did not

turn around. Can I stand up, head in the clouds

on some sort of platform labeled success

and keep my eyes from wandering down

to the gutters where I know you lie. Will I

stop wondering if you see me now, stop

smiling just incase you do, stop holding on

to each breath that I take, as if I must measure

it first to make sure I've packed enough life

into each moment now to make up twofold for

each moment that you robbed of me. each bad day

seems somehow worse as it runs through the filter of

the past and I must replay the source of this discomfort

that can never just be a present moment pain.

has it been enough time yet. one day for each

minute. one year for each day. I serve a lifetime sentence just waiting for parole, while you walk

free. and if I try to take any role in retribution,

the only person that I hurt again is me. how many times do i have to decide 

to be bigger than all this, to beat it, to never let you win. 

how many times must I loosen my white knuckles 

and open up my calloused hands and let you go. 

how many times again do I tell the universe 

that I understand that I will never understand and all I ask for 

is peace. peace. that floats like sunlight on the waves of a lake.

that splashes away onto the next wave as I try to snatch

it up. peace that I cannot find in one all-consuming, life

altering decision. It's never ending. One more time. One

more time. One more time. I choose to live.

Wall of Shame

Example of Rape Culture

I found this in a men's fitness magazine at the gym. 

Some Days

Some days it feels like all I do is keep starting over. I work and work and work. I run until I cannot run anymore. I write until no words are left. I try, as hard as I can try. And I let it sink in for one small second that I am making progress, and then, I fall.

Some days, I figure that this is just the nature of the beast. I’m connected to a group of people I know only a millionth of their names, all suffering a similar life sentence. I understand this in a way the rest of the world will never understand. Some days, I know that it will be like this forever. My life will always be different. It will always come back. No matter what I do and where I go. No matter what I accomplish. There will never be a way to remove this part of my life from the person that I am today.

And then there are other days that I want to scream until my voice is horse. I want to scream and throw things and tear it out of my body in whatever way I can. I want it gone. I want him out. I want to be done with this. I want it to have never happened, so badly it takes over my entire body with a force I cannot explain. I don’t want to deal with this for one more second. I’m done. I’m done being a victim. I will never let him win.

Some days, I fight. I refuse to let this own me. And some days, sadly, I surrender to it and I get through the night by remembering that tomorrow is another day. Tomorrow will be better. Tomorrow, maybe I won’t have to deal with this. Tomorrow, maybe it will somehow disappear.

Some days I feel like maybe I could talk. I want to call up a friend of mine just to tell her my secret. Just to get it off my chest and let someone else carry it for a while. Some days I get close to actually dialing the numbers. And some days I swear that no matter what I do in my life, I will take it all with me to my grave. I will never let people know what really happened. I will never let it be real.

Some days I feel connected. I hear another story, and through the sadness that I feel I find a small piece of understanding in the knowledge that someone else out there is this big world feels the same things that I am feeling. They know what it is like. Even if I never meet them. Even if they never know we are connected. Somehow, this helps.

And some days I feel completely isolated. I know that no one in the world will ever, ever, ever understand. I think that it would be better if I didn’t get out of bed, or if I just laid down on the floor and stayed there until people forgot about me.

Some days I can’t even remember what it was like. I think about it and I pause to wonder if it ever actually happened. Maybe it was all just a crazy story that someone told me. Maybe it’s just a story that I know. A story about a girl I used to be friends with.  A sad story, but not mine. Not mine.

And some days, sometimes, I let it sink in. And I can still feel the fingers wrapped around my wrists. I can still feel them across my mouth. I can still feel him. And it makes me so nauseous and numb that I can’t even try to deny its existence in my life.

Some days I can’t help but to question God. Why? Why? Why did He let this happen to me? What will it take for it to go away now?

But at the end of every day, I bow my head and thank Him, with tears in my eyes, that I am still alive. I found a way to survive.