Long After
Long after
So long after
The rape stays inside.
You cannot wash,
Scrub or move it.
It stays inside.
And even if you know
it’s over.
It stays inside.
Please someone tell me
how to
Take the rape away.
I’m locked in prison not
them because
The rape stays
inside.
By Lally
Behind the black
darkness lies
Wounded souls
Thick in pain
Covered in the
Filth of
betrayal. In the
dirt of rape
Now sick and of
brokenness. In vulgar
men who
Destroy innocence
Of which you
never even
had. Gone before
you tasted life
Repeated in
generations to
whom you are
Assigned by birth
With no choice
or chance
Only to bear
The pain inflicted
Like a thing
A nothing, some
One else’s
Tool
And then to
Rise above and
Discard it
They say
Yet clings tightly to
My soul,
Like life,
and still I fight
For such things
As I do not
know and
Cannot bear
And I writhe in
The discomfort of
That which is
my right.
Misattuned to life
I stumble as though
in darkness but
it I know
I stumble not in
darkness.
But in the
Light.
I feel inflamed.
Raw.
Sore.
Hurt.
Broken.
My body aches with pain to its core. Silently telling me its had enough.
I lay on the bed waiting for relief. Surrounded by soft toys and cocooned in pink blankets.
It’s still and quiet.
And I ache.
My bones ache.
And there are no tears. Just mind-numbness. Empty halls where we all sit wordlessly.
In pain.
With silence.
The quiet is disturbing in my normally loud head. And I realise slowly, heartbreakingly, why there is
Silence
In the face of so much pain
And I pull the blankets closer
Because now I have no words either.
I can’t breathe.
I feel robbed.
Jaded.
Everything crashes down.
Down
Down.
I struggle to keep above the darkness.
Step.
Step.
Step forward.
Mindless. Numbing.
I breathe. Gulping the fresh air.
Breathing deep into the panic.
Settling. Feeling.
Left.
Alone with the pain.
Without which.
I cannot heal.
She stood.
Evolved.
A fraction of her former self.
Where tempers fled her.
Emptied of them self.
And silently solitary she stands.
To wrestle not the demons.
But their absence
She is not the same. Without the host.
Battled and fortified
She steps on.
With a new kind of
Anguish.
My life is surrounded by tears.
Tears in the evening for everything lost.
Tears in the morning for all that it cost.
Tears at work for all that’s too hard.
Tears for the battle to keep the facade.
Tears in the shower curled up in a ball.
Tears in the kitchen trying to do it all.
Tears in the past I cried with no end.
Tears but the past they do not mend.
Tears and more tears
Over all of the years.
I cried in the evening
Every night.
I cried in the morning
Out of sight.
Nobody knew that I cried and cried.
I wiped my eyes and my tears all dried.
But now I can cry and when the tears fall.
Somebody knows and hears when I call.
My life is surrounded by tears that fall.
And
I’m not alone with them any more.
This world was made inside my head. A place where I escaped.
The only place I knew to hide. The only place to go.
And in there soon we all lived. To hide the truth so well.
I hid it from the world. I hid it from ourselves.
We weren’t meant to live this way and so it fell apart.
And seeping out the edges. We all came tumbling out.
And each and every one – a part of me that broke.
To hide us from terrible things and pain too hard to bear.
And as they tumble out. They scar me with their truth.
And I long to put them back inside my head. And escape.
You cannot run from it anymore.
It’s over you like big black sludge pinning you down.
You think to call the crisis line but then you have to open your mouth and speak.
And unleash what you’re barely containing.
You consider to get up and put your sneakers on and pound the treadmill but bashing out emotions feels anti-therapeutic today.
Because everything hurts.
Everything.
My insides are raw from vomiting in the night. And my body is in shock from reliving the past.
I wonder what can help me out of where I am. But also want to stay here. I think she needs me to stay here.
To acknowledge the truth.
And a voice echoes in my head, but safely.
It doesn’t feel safe. It feels very very bad. It feels awful.
My bones ache so much that walking is painful. My back aches so much that it hurts even laying in bed. And my stomach feels off.
I know I must move and switch from this weight. But this feels about right.
This feels how I should feel.
Given. What she went through.
You think that I’m just sad. Or maybe I can’t handle it?
You think that I am not strong when I leave and hide to protect myself?
You think someone or something upsets me and I just need to get over it?
You think that it’s not a big deal? And I’m full of drama?
If you knew, if you really knew. You would stop what you were saying, or thinking, you’d do what you could to help.
For in that moment for me, when I’m thrown off course by a trigger, the moment I was in disappears.
And my whole body is engulfed in a flame of fire. I know I am going to die. I have been raped, battered and bashed. My insides are screaming and raw. And I am terrified and so small and out of control.
I have to manage all of that without people knowing. So I’ll leave, shutdown or I’ll cry and mostly I’ll wish I could die.
And what you see is not what I feel. What you see is not what I know. And what you think or imagine, is probably not even close to my reality.
But
With the right help, plan and strategies.
I can escape the horror of the darkness’s that being triggered is.
And I can breathe again and I can feel safe again.
But it’s not over. The aftermath of being triggered is hard.
I am exhausted. My body is physically sore and sometimes sick. I might feel dizzy. Focussing is hard. And I want to sleep but cannot.
It can take a long time to feel right again. And I have to be steady and slow and very careful and kind to myself.
It’s not a minor disruption for my day. It is no small thing.
I can often avoid triggers. Sometimes I can manage some things and they don’t trigger me when once they would have. Sometimes they’re unavoidable and I have to just survive them.
I have to live this way because of the horrible things that happened to me.
Learn what to do. Learn how to help. Or stay out of my way.
Because people can make it a hell of a lot worse than it needs to be. And add to the problem.
Fliss - one of a kind 