The worst part of the assault wasn’t the assault
it was everything else
The worst part is the rest of the violence fading in comparison
as soon as you say rape
as if years of being beaten with baseball bats, electric cords, fists
no longer matters
because the bruises from the beatings faded
The worst part is that you believe it was your fault
bad things happen to bad kids, so you must be bad
and this is your punishment
You keep believing this for years after
The worst part is tripling in size because you’re too young to know how to do anything other than eat your trauma away
then having to deal with a society that calls you fat and disgusting and tells you nobody will ever want you in all your grotesque flesh
as if your freshly-violated self wasn’t already walking around feeling disgusting
wanting to scratch and scour at the crawling feeling inside your chest
as if being fat-shamed on top of being raped wasn’t enough
as if you wanted to be wanted
The worst part is being nicknamed Daria because at fourteen your facial expression has defaulted to despair
it’s being called Daria instead of depressed
and not realising that’s what you were until years later
when you sat in a university lecture and heard PTSD and trauma and depression and thought Shit, is that what that was?
You walked out of that hall draped in your grotesque flesh and drab oversized clothes
understanding, at last, that you are a fucking stereotype, or is the word statistic
that you’re normal in your abnormality
and it’s a morbid relief to know you’re not so different, after all
The worst part is disclosing to someone you thought was a friend at fifteen
only to have him go through your childhood photos later and say Wow, you looked like such a Lolita
not being sure if he knew exactly what he was saying
but spending a week after crying anyway, etching lines into your skin with a razor
(you’re not trying to kill yourself, you want to live
you want to live
just not like this)
The worst part is coming out to that same friend at twenty-one
only to have him reply Everyone I know who’s been raped turned out gay
It’s watching white queers gyrate
without any sense of rhythm
to Lady Gaga’s Born This Way
and not knowing whether you were Born This Way or Raped This Way
because you have no idea if you even had a sexuality beforehand
and the tiny voice in your head whispers that maybe you would’ve been cured if only you’d gotten counselling in time
but you were too young to know what counselling was
By the time you were old enough to seek it out for yourself the homo inside you had made himself quite at home
The worst part is that it happened during a holy time of year
and you haven’t been able to pray to your gods in the twenty years since
because every time you kneel you go into a dark place
(or maybe the dark place comes into you)
and you hate feeling distant from the gods you love and worship
God Hates Fags
so obviously your gods must hate you, too
The worst part is walking into a police station after enough time has gone by
and you thought you could finally talk about it without breaking down
(you were wrong)
even though you don’t believe in police systems
you’re more about prison abolition and transformative justice these days, but as it turns out
your ethics only go so far—only as far as you can keep them at an intellectual distance
because when it comes to you and him
lock him up and throw away the key
you want him to rot, to burn
The tiny voice inside your head whispers you are a fucking hypocrite, you know that, you fat piece of shit
The worst part is the white officer smiling at you across her desk
while you think about how you’re perpetuating the narrative of brown male violence, violent immigrants
Donald Trump called your people criminals and rapists
this white officer probably agrees
She offers you off-brand tissues
while you talk and cry and the voice in your head whispers
you sound like you’re fucking lying. you think this bitch believes you?
The worst part is that even now
you still don’t know whether to call yourself a victim or a survivor
You refuse the helplessness of victim
but you haven’t exactly survived yet, either.
