There’s a lot I don’t know about healing.

I tell myself that this time, I'm going to be better 
Not as fucked up. Not as heavy. 

This time I’m gonna swallow. 
I'm not gonna let them see the bitter.
The sorrow. The salt in the wounds.
I’m going to run until I can’t think.
Then I’m gonna run some more because back then I couldn't.
Because I can now.

My housemate looked at me 
asked me if I may have said something to make my protest sound like a yes. 

Yeah, I'd pick the bear in the forest. 
Every time. 
Death is a friend at this point. There are things worse than the grave. 
Trust. 
Every violation took my life. And I didn't ask for it back. 
But life gives you more than you can handle sometimes. 
So here I am. 

The forest was concrete. 
Sidewalks. Bus stops. Buses. Alleys. Dim lights and a palace lit up purple. 
A predator chasing me down. Tearing into me. 

Nobody looks for Black women who go missing. 
Nobody but us. 
Ya get? 
I was missing. Gone on my way back home
I never made it home but somehow I'm still breathing. 

A mother I used to know called me. 
She didn’t tell me that it gets better. She didn’t say there’s any silver lining. 
She let me refuse to as well. 

My heart was broken so I went for a run. 
It was just me and the cows in the field. Me, screaming 
I’m still here. Me, locking eyes with the fox before it ran off the trail.
Me, running past the dead mouse hit by a human driving a car. 
Me, saying a prayer. Saying goodluck. Saying sorry. Saying godspeed.
Asking the mouse 
When you get to where you've gone, say hi to me. 
I’ll be there, 
body still in a bed staring at the ceiling. Body still in an alley unable to stand. 
Body still on the bench by the bus stop wondering why the palace is lit up purple.
Body still on the bus wondering if anyone is going to save me.
Body still every place it was taken. Body like this mouse. 
Please find my selves. Tell them I'm still here. 

I wanted to give it a proper burial but the only dead thing I touched that day was myself.

I’m throwing myself a pity party. Rsvp if you can make it. 
The only thing I’m serving is olives and coconuts and lavender and beets and chips and cheese
except the chips are stale and the cheese is old. 
You don’t have to come 
the only activity that you should expect is laughing until we cry. 
Maybe we’ll watch whale documentaries until we fall asleep. 

I'm not trying to make you comfortable with my discomfort. 
Not trying to do anything but create a reason to be sad 
because you can be sad about food you don’t like and stale chips and old cheese 
but you can’t be Black and woman and sexually assaulted and sad
because you’re Black, woman, and sexually assaulted. 

I call myself a victim of a crime because survivor seems too holy.
Too much like the violence is going to be addressed properly 
and I know better than to hope too big. 

My hair is falling out. It isn’t growing back. 
I don’t look at it in the mirror anymore. 
I can’t stand to see the damage on my body. 
I can’t stand to see my body sometimes.
Except through the eyes of the people that moan my name 
when we’re tangled in embrace. 

Is this what survival is? 

I count my bodies. The ones met after what happened. 
The ones met just so I could try to forget 
the times I did not give permission.
The ones I curled into so I could redefine pleasure 
while pleasure’s presence was a reminder of the war waged over my self. 
And for a moment, I hate it all as much as I love it– 
the pain and pleasure. 
Then the moment passes and I'm sad. moving on not so damaged okay    
still trying to make sense of the unconscionable. 

The police call every 28 days to tell me updates of the case. 
Last I heard, they had their hands on the evidence. 
My favourite sweatpants. My favourite top. 
My new sports bra which I was excited to find for a great price 
but handed over in the hospital
one more thing i love taken away from me
before I realised how much it hurt. 

I never wanted to write this. 

But poetry is the closest I can get to tenderness
without breaking open, undone
remembering the ways I wasn’t held carefully even though I needed the softness.
I just wanted a salve for the wounds. 
Who knows, maybe relief is on its way.
There’s a lot I don’t know about healing. 

Forgive me for my mess. 
Forgive me for the mess that I called mine.
Forgive me for calling the mess mine. 
Forgive me for all the happy endings I try to write.
Forgive me for all the love in my life I leave out of writing.
Forgive me for all the ways I tried to love you, and fell short.
Forgive me, please. 
Do for me what I can’t do for myself

(yet)