She 80

She had to remind herself that she was a soldier, that she must keep up a face made of stone, must tuck away her heart, must swallow her own tears. She was a solider. She begged others not to love her, and they complied. She hated them for it, for giving her what she wanted. She rolls out of her bed, her bones felt weak and her skin was nothing more than just a sheet draped over her innards.

She used to be a sex goddess. The way she danced, you could see her passion in her hips. Her breasts full, delicate hands, hips like a woman, strong arms. Her smile was a vicious infection, as was her kindness. She’d lose this all. It was stolen.

She cried and begged and choked on her own breath, her own words. He held her mouth and smashed her head into her bedpost as he forced all of his darkness inside of her. It was hers now. She tried to scratch it out, drown it out, shut it up only to come to find the impossibility of this.

Draped in baggy, dirty clothing, she hid. She hid in her room, under her blankets, under layers of armor, both real and imagined. She could still see a blood stain on her headboard. The blood came from her face the night the man from the gym let himself into her home and forced himself into her. Nothing she can do can get him out. She can’t even bring herself to clean up the blood. She doesn’t eat. She soils herself. Her figure becomes bones, she has trouble breathing. For a moment, she becomes scared for her life- until she realizes what gives her life is exactly what she wants to kill. She took an exacto-knife to her skin, began to carve away at all the tattoos that had witnessed this crime against her soul.

When she was young she wanted to be a doctor, a lawyer, a scientist, a magician, a dancer, an artist, and everything in between. Until her twelth birthday her parents laughed along with her. She was an only child. Soon after she turned 12 her mother began silencing her curiosity, demanding elegance. Her mother told her all about how to be a lady. “Unless you behave like a lady, you will never have a man. And lord knows what I’d do without your father” her mother would say. This was the first time the girl felt the sacrifices that came with being a woman. Could they even be called sacrifices? Isn’t a sacrifice something you give up? These things were taken by lies, institutions, ideas, religion, and then finally, by that man.

She fought so hard for it all, and then watched it leave, let it leave, and didn’t welcome it back home.