Snippet

From my WIP “Sometimes/Often/Always”:

It’s easy to forger that not all abuse is physical. The black eye, the bruised ear, the split lip, even when legitimately come across; it raises the eyebrows and people, remembering crime scene photos of the victims, can’t help but wonder.

But where are the bruises that words leave? Where are the cuts left when a family member threatens to shoot you? Where are the breaks and split skin from systematically undermining your value as a human—for years?

We don’t literally wear our hearts on our sleeves so the world can see how scarred our pasts have left us. Sometimes, often, I wish all damage translated to the physical. That each word corresponded to a blow so that we could look and not deny the damage we do to each other.

Screaming should split ears. Threat of violence should beget violence. Insults should lacerate skin.

Not just so those who hurt see their rage in ribbons of blood on other people. But also so that we can stand at a mirror, probing battered flesh, and know for sure when we are victims. For healing can never begin as long as we keep lying to ourselves.

I leave that last part out, but the rest of the words spill out and tumble like dangerous puppies at the woman sitting behind the desk in a cheerfully lit, sparse little office so unlike a psychiatrist’s. I have a lot of practice talking about my past, my childhood, teen and young adult years. The present is far more dangerous. I’m more attached to my present.