Survivors Road...............Your Words.
(please note: these are unedited......I feel them powerful and courageous to tell..........I will not edit.)
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Written by KMH©:
A journal exercise the first time I was able to write about it..and it happened 35 years ago
I am 14. I live in Orange California. I live with my mother and father, in a two story house. It is summer, about 10 o'clock at night.The window in my room is open. We have something called Santa Ana winds here they are hot winds, so the air is stirred about but it is hot air. My mother is sleeping in her room, my father is gone somewhere. I have decided to read a book in bed.Laying here, in stagnant heat, I can feel the openings in my skin, the pores, as they swell to the brim with perspiration being pushed to the top from inside out.
The house is so quiet and the winds have no howl, almost earthquake weather, still and hot. My chest rises and falls in normal rhythms and as I rest the book on my chest the book rises and falls as well.....I can hear the breath go inside me and I can hear and feel it be pushed out. I am hot. The bed feels comfortable, the pillows just right, my shoulders sink into them. Alone, but not lonely. My eyes glide over the words in the book sending messages back to my brain putting the story all together. I can feel my skin change position in order to smile, in response to something good in the story. Suddenly through the sound barriers of my state, a car swooshes down the street and turns quick into our driveway, my father driving erratically again.
He must be drunk. My body rebels to the thought, it begins to squirm, never knowing just what to expect from these moments. I hold my breath longer now...waiting for a clue, how drunk is he? The door opens downstairs, everything so quiet, he must know we are in bed. The trek begins. I can hear his heavy foot as is contacts each step, the crack of his knees, the sliding of his hand up the banister to steady him. A pause, he must be catching his footing. I will ignore him, my breath stops, chanting in my mind,,,go go go go go go go go......my body begins to shake to his stopping.
The door opens and he stands there with that stupid, foolish grin, his eyes glazed over, I doubt he even knows it is me here holding my breath, wishing he would just go away.I have sensed fear so many times before and it always left. He takes a step. He is not in retreat, fear gets into the bed with me...crushing up against me, forced to breathe, I keep reading though the pages have started to tremble....gripped now by the fear, he takes another step to me, he sits....takes the book from my hands.What an ugly man. A sly look, foolish grin, disgusts me, my stomach begins to turn like a cement mixer being pushed by my friend fear. His eyes half closed, he opens his mouth to speak....I refuse eye contact. "Isn't it a little hot in here?" Why doesn't he go away, what can I do? Afraid to speak, to break any air waves, I smell the familiar of alcohol, wincing, as the words come from his mouth with trails of bourbon, enough to intoxicate me surely.He leans close, my breath held again, I sense eminent danger, but in such surprise that he stayed this time, I make no attempt to move...."why don't you take this robe off?" as his average fingers reach to the fabric just under my chin, and take hold of the zipper....OH MY GODDD....as he begins to pull the zipper down, I become paralyzed, fear grabs at my throat, I choke trying to bring up a breath, this is my father, what is he doing, the voices in my head pound hammer like, do something, the scream in a high pitched voice, with every millimeter of pulled zipper.....I am in such disbelief, I fall painfully fast into a state of suspended time.
The zipper all the way down, he says nothing, I can see my heart beat the sweat of my body reverberates with each pulse. I am staring directly at him with marble like eyes but I cant see him, I no longer recognize this mass of flesh, this dragon of a man breathing fire, singeing my soul......if I pretend to be dead will he leave? He is so drunk surely he wouldn't know the difference, I still my heart, the trembles of my body, my breathing.....I close my eyes, it is my only defense against the truth.
Hail Mary full of grace, the lord is with me....the fabric is being pulled back from its place along my skin... I can feel air glide along once covered skin....as more fabric is pulled away....I am exposed now.....I can not see me, my eyes shut tight, but smart enough to know he can see me, though blurred by the drunken stupor, it is a face off.....I lay dead, he sits alive..... I can feel air brush past my face, he is moving towards me......and as if I have crash landed in hell, a bullet hits my skin, stinging, not from any gun, its his lips, but they shatter bullet like as they press to the nipple, no longer am i in touch with me...in my head I am me, but not here not now....my body stings...repulsed, i want to throw up....i feel HIS saliva, his tongue mashing at me....his hand oozes like slime to the other breast and feels for the nobby center, they are no longer human to me...
I am board stiff, dead like, the same voices still screaming at me from inside out....i feel him hands pressed to the bed lift himself up....hes leaving....and a thigh stumbles over mine, he is not leaving, oh God let me pass out, let me die, let me go.....the other leg, his knee comes to rest along the side of the leg.....my heart.....beats so fast you cannot no longer see it...i feel something being pressed out through my tear duct.....and it rolls down my burning hot cheek, I can hear it sizzle as it falls down my face off the cliff of my chin to my chest and sits there pooled.
I am frozen now, this is not me, but a shell of a girl, I will not lose my soul to him....as he tugs at the pillow under my head and pulls it from me, my head slams against the once comfortable now prison like bed. And everything gets much darker and I open my eyes and its still dark, the pillow.....it is over my head, he mumbles something, I cannot hear the voices are too loud....the jingling of money, belt buckles, rustling of khaki material, grunts...
disoriented now....
as a hand reaches up under and pulls my underwear from me...i press my body to the bed,,,hard but he is too strong for my weakened state and, his nails scratch their way down my leg as if it were a blackboard, the scraping sound echoes.....and i feel him thrust....i am losing consciousness, i think, or i have started to deny, to block out, i hear grunts, the night is still...i no longer hear my heart....and with some force outside of me my hands push the pillow from my face in time to take a breath and they keep pushing as they roll him off of me, and gets up and leaves the room.
I lay in complete silence, scared, relieved, and hurt, physically and emotionally.
He is no longer my father.
He became an animal just then.
I want to cry but the shock keeps the tears at bay.....what do I do? Trying to catch my held breath, i stand up and putting one foot in front of the other, not really walking, I go across the hall to the bathroom, and turn on the shower.....i step in clothes and all...is this a state of shock?.....and stay planted until the water turns cold.....then turning off the water, I sit down in the tub....my body shivering now.....and looking at my watch, the time suspended, stopped, it was not waterproof....
i see that only minutes have gone by when it seems as if a lifetime just flew by.....
this will be my new bedroom now...and what i dont know is..it will be my refuge for the next 10 years....
The voices no longer screaming at me..soothe me now...telling me its over, to sleep and tomorrow in the light of day, we will make a plan.
Father's Day
i decided to walk to the park
and pay my respects to you
you are not buried at the park, i know
but that is where you buried me
you took the last of my childhood
from me
and i miss the park,
the laughter,
but especially
love
do you see the child over there
calling for daddy
i called for you that night
on christmas,
while you were in the bar
and you left me in the alley
and still the stranger came
and you laughed
at my wild imagination
i still see his face
when i hear your laughter
and when
men touch my body,
which i seldom let them do,
it is your tongue i taste,
it is your burning flesh i feel
and when i cry
as i write the words
i know that if it were a story i was
telling you,
about a friend
you would be crying too
why is it that you could cry
for every one but me,
because as hard
as i try to let it go
it is always there,
dancing with the lonliness,
partying with pity.
god, how i wish it was just my
wild imagination.
happy fathers's day
daddy.
KMH
©
June 1997
Broken Dreams~Mended Wings
i was young and kind
an angel in progress
my whole life
before me
hopes
dreams
until the night
he staggered
up
the
stairs
and took from me
any chance at a normal life
as he fondled and pressed himself
into me
the pillow
smothering my pleas
with each forbidden
touch
he shattered one more dream
one more vision
until, he, satisfied
left me dead
my heart still beat
but there was no life left
as i lay wrapped in broken wings
i left the real world
that night
and took residence within myself
my only place of trust
beginning to gather
all the shards
of my shattered dreams
no more rounded edges
just jagged bits of vision
lost
now with mended wings
i have taught myself
to fly
no longer little girl lost
i am a confident, sensual woman
who knows the passion of
love and life
who stands proud
looking back
only to see
just how far i have come
KMH
©
April 1999
Thank You for the page. As a Survivor my self I know how important they are.
Here are 2 of the several Poem's I wrote durning therapy, and if you would like to see other's here is the link also.
(link follows)
Feel free to use my Screen name as I NO LONGER feel the shame.
Safe Hugs,
Mary
Racer0612@aol.com
YOU SAID;
You said you didn't want me. YOU SAID so many, many times.
So why did you keep me?
I was to pretty, YOU SAID.
I was to popular, YOU SAID.
I was to thin, YOU SAID.
I made everyone leave you, YOU SAID.
I made Kenny die, YOU SAID.
I ruined your life, YOU SAID.
I made Grandma die, YOU SAID.
Buck wanted me, YOU SAID.
It was my job, YOU SAID.
He left you, because of me, YOU SAID.
It was all my fault, YOU SAID.
I was no good, YOU SAID.
I was dirty, YOU SAID.
I would never amount to any thing, YOU SAID.
YOU SAID, YOU SAID, YOU SAID.
You NEVER said you was sorry, you NEVER said you were wrong.
And you NEVER said you loved me,
That you NEVER SAID.....
WHY?
Why, didn't my mother love me? Love me enough to protect me?
Why, did she say I runied her life? I didn't ask to be born.
WHY, did she hurt me so badly?
WHY, did she rape me?
WHY, did she allow and help her husband rape me?
WHY, did she allow her boyfriends to touch me any whay they wanted?
WHY, didn't she stop, when Grandma told her that
what she was doing was wrong?
WHY, didn't she put me up for adoption?
Why, couldn't she ever be happy for me?
WHY, wasn't she ever happy, when I would do well,
or when I was happy?
WHY, did she always treat me like the other woman?
WHY, didn't she just LOVE ME,
like a mother should LOVE her daughter?
WHY / WHY NOT?
And the Link.... SURVIVORS
Additional Stories from Adult Survivors