MENTAL HEALTH MONDAY
He gave me money to silence me,
he bought me beautiful pieces,
adorned me with jewels
and dressed me up like a doll,
red lipstick, high heeled shoes, red dress,
I must say, I looked beautiful-
even when I knew that
he bought specifically the most revealing dress
he could find, just so
his eyes could feast on my lusciousness
every second he wanted to,all at his pleasure.
Like a predator always eyeing its prey,
he wanted my lips painted red,
maybe to leave little red marks on his shirt and claim it was one of his “women”,
this way, no one would believe that
he did anything to me for I never wore any lipstick or accentuated myself,so,
the lipstick mark would tell the tale
of how it was I who “wanted” it!
They painted my room pink,
away from the dark grey it had always been-
of course, that was not at all like me,
I loved my clothes buggy not tight,
I loved my hair messy not neat in a ponytail or falling down my shoulders,
I loved my shoes low and comfortable not high like a model on the runway,and I,
I loved my room dull,
so I could fill it with my sadness, my pain and drench my pillow with my tears
throw those tissues all over the place and feel not even the slightest guilt about it.
I loved those walls grey because they didn’t shout “you are making me dirty” like that new pink colour on them now.
I liked hiding in my oversized clothes, that way,
no one noticed me,
lousy is what I had identified myself with
till that one time-
I still don’t think he really noticed me,
it must have been the alcohol that made me look appealing to him,
because he had always dreaded and
he detested me, but that day,
he walked up to me,
I was not scared, and
even though a little voice kept telling me to retreat, I couldn’t-
I just stood there watching him get closer and closer to me.
I knew he had touched me but I was numb,
he spoke nothing at all,
the only sound I could hear was my fast beating heart enraged by his gruesome touch,
his fingers forcing their way inside my vagina,
which I once called “my rose”-
and one by one, I could feel the petals falling off,
he was breathing fast, like he was enjoying every bit of it,
but I, on the other hand, felt nothing
I was used to this,
I never enjoyed his touch,
but every time I tried to speak of it,
no one would listen.
something “more important” always came up…..
This time though,
something a little bit strange happened,
it felt different, and new,
and then there it was, the pain…
it wasn’t just the fingers anymore
I had never known this unfamiliar feeling,
my eyes were burning with tears,
I could tell he was enjoying his little game
because he never stopped even once when I let out that long stifled cry,
tears rolled down my cheeks
I couldn’t fight him,
he was way stronger than I was,
I just let him have me and shamelessly, he did,
in every possible way he could-
my body was marked with his touch and
little bite marks here and there,
I watched him fill me,
and felt him working his way to get some release,
it was easier that way because then he would get what he wanted and never come back for more,
I wouldn’t expect any beatings, or
bruises from his iron fist.
My body was aware of what had just happened,
but my mind couldn’t process a thing-
I just walked back to my room and
let the tears flow.
I felt so dirty, every inch of me
waa stained with the fingerprints of a monster,
how was I supposed to get his touch off my skin?
What would ‘mommy’ say if I told her about this?
“you wanted it too” like she always said.
Well, I had to go through the pain alone,
what difference would it make anyway?Nothing!!!!
I always wrote down every single detail
each time it happened, I used to write, and
have faith that these poems
would speak for me and tell the stories that
I couldn’t tell a soul, but on that day,
when I was onxe again nothing but a wreckage,
with neither a tongue or the will to talk-
that day, even the least courage to find words and write about “him”, it wasn’t there,
I couldn’t find it.
And then it all made sense…
BIIRA NEEMA AGATHA
