It’s all connected

My fortitude and my resilience: I am afraid it won’t do me any good. I’m afraid that it will be like before, when I had no way out, and I did everything I could think of to release myself from him. My performance. I performed for him often, to get him to stop touching me, stop picking me out of a line up of all different parts of me. All faces and faucets of who I am. But he never stopped. And it was his face after that I remember the most. That no matter what I did, it didn’t change it. He always wore this face of disgust or disdain or worse: desire. And I tried everything. Flattery, love, anticipating needs, hiding, avoiding, or worse giving in. I’m afraid now that it’s the same, my body doesn’t know the difference. This performance at work, this giving faces, this being picked, this resilience. I noticed that before I go in the anxiety is so high, like something bad is going to happen, like I know what he’s going to do next and I’m trying to find a way to avoid it at all costs and then after work it’s like I come into grief and sadness eat me alive and I want and need to leave myself. It’s all attached to these memories.  To these facets of who I am, to the faces that I had to wear to protect myself. 

This

It was the way he looked at me 

Every time after 

It was the way the piano music was all I held on too 

It was the intensity 

It was knowing I had no way out

I was trapped and I couldn’t come up for air or love or freedom

I feel like that often now, and yet my reality does not reflect it. 

I can see his face sometimes

And my performance? All for nothing 

None of it meant anything 

None of it changed what he did 

None of it made him love me 

None of it made him see me 

And I did everything I could, every single thing I could think of

And it never made a difference