There’s this trick to surviving trauma. You become a ghost. If you leave your body long enough, you can’t feel anything. There’s no exact pinpoint of this moment that I left my body. I left gradually, over time becoming a walking shell.
Veil.
Under a blanket of stars and a crescent moon, a gathering of people celebrated the thinness of the Veil. A time when they could commune with our ancestors, mourn and celebrate lost loved ones, and embrace both the finality and eternity of life on various planes. Each night, we danced around the crackling embers of the bonfire. We drank honeyed wine and ran wild, unashamed and free, away from the confinements of what laid beyond this hidden patch of land.
There’s a game to be played at night. You take an orange. You puncture the pulpy flesh with cloves. Around the bonfire, we exchange the wounded orange. If presented with it, you may either relieve the orange of the clove with your hand or your mouth. The presenter must follow suit when retrieving the clove, wherever it may be. Often, this game leads us from the fire to the tents.
I sit around one of the smaller fires of a camp known as the Rainbow Camp. I cannot believe these people were merely strangers not long ago. The previous night, the first night, we sat around a secluded fire to share and bond over personal ghost stories. How can one not with the Veil so thin? This night is different, though. This night is boisterous and young and our troubles lay buried beneath us. A young man visits from the main bonfire. He presents me with a clove dotted orange and a tale that he was sent by a friend.
With painful memories already loose in last night’s haunting wind, I retrieve the clove.
When returning to camp the next morning, I am greeted with warm hugs as people drink their coffees and teas and personal elixirs to ease nighttime festivities. Noticing that I did not emerge from my own tent this morning, I receive boyish grins and shameless inquiries of how my evening went.
Without dawning realization, a lie and a smile escape my tongue. I see how excited and happy they are for me. For a moment, I forget lying there, but not present, eyes back, a no swallowed in my throat, performing a skill long since mastered. I forget how by the time he came into my life, I am already hollowed out, a ghost tethered to an empty shell, a punctured orange with cloves falling out. For a moment, I am here and present at the festival, ready to embrace what the world offers me. I cannot let another tarnished encounter stain my record. I cannot taint this weekend. I cannot let that moment be anything other than a good time.
That night, during the thinness of the Veil, I ponder if a part of me left.
Monster.
I feel it in the pit of my stomach. I feel it inside of me, just a breath beneath my skin. He is here, the monster. The first place to check when looking for monsters is beneath the bed. He is not there. The second place to check is the closet. He is not there either.
I need to get rid of him.
I find myself sitting in the bathtub, trying to remember what steps I took to get here. My memory is fuzzy lately. Too many blurs and not enough fine lines. The dissociation, the memory problems, the therapist says it’s normal, that it began as a survival technique. To keep myself from breaking. The very thing that he manipulated.
I pick up the bar of soap. Did I already do this? Yes. Then why do I still feel so dirty?
I scrub. He is still beneath my skin.
I feel myself slipping back away until I’m in my bedroom again– dry and in shorts.
I check beneath the bed again. He is not there. I check in my closet. He is not there.
I get on the computer. He is still blocked on all my sites. I check my phone. His number is still blocked. I click through the screenshots. Yes, he is still guilty of those things. No, he cannot deny them. He cannot twist my mind anymore.
I lie on the bed. I will myself not to think. Not to recall that, yes, he forced me here. Not to wonder if he also cheated on me here, where I take refuge every night.
I need to get rid of him, but he still lives beneath my skin.
I look down at my phone. When did it get so late?
Why do I still feel so dirty? How can he still be inside of me?
Well Dressed.
Abusers survive by their charm, friends, and well-tailored image. This particular abuser knows ribbons are the latest fashion trend on social media. What better way to showcase one’s support for endeavors and monthly causes than some quick lace?
He excels at dressing up nicely. How could one think ill of someone who loves his son, who attends queer functions as an ally, who’s worked as a community educator at a women’s shelter? The final touch comes in April’s trend. A pretty teal ribbon for sexual assault awareness month.
His profile picture reads Believe Survivors.
It’s futile to claw those words from his throat, to shred the ribbon he bastardizes. No matter what I speak nor actions I take, he finds himself without consequence. He remains donned in cheap ribbons, allowing his truth to lurk beneath.
At this point, I pray for a ribbon to snag and for him to choke.
A Doll.
The second semester of college passed in a blur of hard work, tears, and panic. That following summer, I laid on the bed of what was now considered the “guestroom” at my father’s home. I opened my laptop, eager and a little fearful to hear back from the man who helped me survive my first year of college.
I check my email. I recently switched from Yahoo to Gmail. His preference. I ignored my shaking hand as I read his latest response.
>Oh, it’s a brilliant plan. Brilliant. Truly evil… and somewhat scary.
He speaks of his former flame as if I am not present. He speaks of her as something to diminish. To blow her light like a puff of smoke.
>She’s very sensitive, I guess is a good word. Emotional would be another very good word.
He speaks of his miserable life. How his broken heart resulted in sleepless nights, in nightmares, in illness, and depression. He speaks of her as if she is the cause. As if her absence created this void inside him, that surely didn’t exist beforehand. What was he without his plaything?
>Once she got depressed (cried) that there was some misunderstanding at holidays, and she thought it was some fault of hers.
He speaks in detail, describing her as a doll. He speaks of her as an object that needs to be broken. She no longer served her function, her design to please him. What is the point of a doll if it no longer pleases?
I can only stare at the message on the computer screen. A part of me cannot fathom what I’m reading. Is this really the person I’ve poured my heart into? The person who’s helped me through these nights despite an ocean between us?
I want to stay.
And yet, a small voice in the back of my mind screams at me.
>She’d get depressed, saddened, maybe cry…
I type up a nondescript comment before closing the browser. It’s hard to think right now, hard to rationalize what he’s saying, hard to realize what’s he done to me.
>…result in her being broken, saddened, destroyed, completely depressed.
The next day, I write a longer email. I say goodbye without saying why.
I begin erasing him from my life.
>Think of a little broken toy that doesn’t work anymore,
From any social media. Deleting all the Skype conversations and then blocking them.
>just stares blankly into the voidness of space, not expressing anything, numb, only sometimes making unrelated noises,
I delete all the emails, both to me and from me so I am not tempted to browse through. I save the one, the one of him detailing his plan to me. I read it over and over, reminding myself why.
>completely blank, null and void.
He becomes erased, yet continues to linger.
> Especially since I know she won’t be with me…
Ruins.
An unknown force calls me back to my old neighborhood, the one next to the run-down middle school. Slowly, tender-footed, I retrace the steps. The ally way between the rows of homes is still filled with dirt. Perhaps more potholes than I recall. Perhaps those were simply filled with mud and water the last time.
It’s the perfect hiding spot.
I pass the back of his old home. The trampoline is barren, no longer filled with bouncing kids or laughter. I keep walking. There’s no time for pauses. My legs move on their own accord.
You want to see the moon?
I take a left and continue.
I’ve relived this moment a thousand times over the years since it happened. From the cops, to the judge, to the shit therapists. I’ve vocalized it. I’ve written it both dryly and poetically. I’ve dreamt about it. I could describe what happened in any number of ways.
I arrive.
This was my first time physically revisiting.
I look at the scene. On my left, bamboo struts up from the ground next to a chain-link fence. It has been almost five, no, seven years. I can no longer tell where the bamboo has snapped when he knocked me to the ground. My gaze shifts to the ground.
I move my feet up and down where I attempted to get back up and run, where my face planted down onto the gravel.
Was it here? That I begged? Or was that after? Detached, I ponder how many ten-year-olds negotiate for their life.
Fine, I’ll kiss you, I won’t tell anyone, I promise.
I keep staring at the ruins. The scene replays in my head. The kiss no longer being enough. The roaming hands meeting at my throat. The part where I detached myself and waited and waited and waited. The dogs coming, followed by their master, my savior.
I keep staring until I finally walk away, surprised at myself for feeling nothing.
Ghosts.
There’s this trick to surviving trauma. You become a ghost. If you leave your body long enough, you can’t feel anything. There’s no exact pinpoint of this moment that I left my body. I left gradually, over time becoming a walking shell.
And what’s a ghost to do? Other than haunt itself?
Photo by Thomas Kinto on Unsplash
