in response to the dailydot article (and several others) regarding the consent app...

 i find this incredibly frightening and offensive. it leaves way too much open for interpretation.

for example, i just thought of this and had no plans to add it, so thank god i thought of it (atheist here, BTW): i'm an alcoholic. my father and both grandfathers and so on as far as we know--drunks/alcoholic. so i don't drink too often but sometimes i can drink 7 beers and have a fantastic, rowdy time, have a few glasses of wine or some shots, maybe all that, 11 drinks, i'm just fine.

sometimes i have three glasses of 9% beer and i'm just fine--for one hour and a half, then i am GONE, i mean DRUNK AS FUCKING HELL and sometimes blacking out, and guys would follow me around the west village, even getting out of their cabs to approach me and laugh when i picked up bottles and threw them at their feet to keep them away until i got to the 1 or got to where foot traffic and lights were heavy around union square.

okay, so put that into perspective. how often are you supposed to be consenting via app? consent can change at any second. what is this bullshit that NOBODY HAS FUCKING USED JOURNALISTIC INTEGRITY TO FUCKING SAY SO YET!? we're talking about how epidemic anal rape is among generation y, and i tell you, there have been five guys who did that, so i fucking ditched them, no dating, no friendship, nothing ever except seething hatred and scorching Hell. why is this app something that can be used in court to blanket consent? it's stupid to expect that that can do it. or are they going to patent it and have people sign agreements bound by federal law that no matter what happens once you click we're good to go!--

--shit, okay, great, you can't report to the cops that you're missing half your leg because the asshole decided to cannibalize ONLY part of you, thanks, fuck my app contract.

like, that's extreme, i know, but think of every single variant in between. when i was 15 i wanted a french kiss and got the worst pain of my life when the guy put his finger in my ass. do i want an app to cover consent to fingering my ass without warning or the specific request for consent?

my most hated rapists are the skullfuckers, no matter their length or girth. the puniest penis will find its owner cut out of my life, no matter how many beatings and rapes i have to endure while i tell roommates never to let those assholes back in to rape me and e-mail and push away the shitheads. they want to rape by forcing any girl or woman they choose to gag and even vomit. not my game. it's my life and my body, and you will get the fuck out of both forever if you do that to me once. you are a danger to all women and i wish we could blacklist you publicly because i would warn everyone in the world of these shitheads.

that is not gonna be covered by this app, no sirree bob, and you see it in porn, the girls are crying and scared, pissed, heartbroken, and if that's what men get excited over and want to cover in this app, girls...girls...women, ladies, womyn, gals, oh, you are not thinking if you want this app too.

it's a fucking misogynistic app. i have sex when i'm drunk. i have been raped when i'm drunk, and i have been raped when i'm just about blacking out or while i'm asleep, while i'm blacked out, then come to during or after, and i will tell you one fucking universal truth, and you will not fucking deny it.

ENTHUSIASTIC CONSENT IS VERY EASY TO RECOGNIZE. 

when things are consensual, here's what happens. BOTH people give each other warm looks, and then there is TINGLING. there is no tingling in rape, not all-over tingling, uh, no. penis tingling, ego tingling, anger tingling. do. not. count.

then there are touches, small ones. if the first one is rejected, that's that. the next touch on THAT VERY OCCASION will be the other person's later on, if at all, and maybe there are still dates to go on, maybe not. but it will be the person who rejected the first. do not tell me i'm bullshitting. why do people not ever bring this up?

then there is! most people usually or always kiss; when two strangers, remember, this is all about strangers and the consequent familiarity that MAINTAINS the level of consent...anyway, when two strangers do not kiss, that isn't necessarily a bad formula, but if one person likes to kiss so much that this is a shock or turn-off, this is the optimal time to say, "no, i don't like this." i've done that twice, and i've been raped both times. that is bad, bad, borderline evil, evil borderline on malignant.

the sex. the sex can include fingering, rimming, cunnilingus, fellatio, anal sex, vaginal sex, foot-sucking, anything anybody wants. does the app cover BDSM? hell, why would you expect an app to cover someone tying you up and flogging you bloody? but if the other person has that in mind as you sign the app, then--the app is still open to interpretation and would not stop someone desperate, an MRA even, from thinking, "ooooooooo YOU SAID YES FUCK YOU GODDAMN YOU I WILL FUCKING GET WHAT I PAID $70 FOR TONIGHT"

what if you say yes, and the guy says, "go down on me!" but he won't eat you out, and you want to say no? will you feel scared that you already signed a consent form? will you worry that he will remind you about it? will he grab you by the hair and push you down, ranting that you said yes? rapists are many and tempers run short. 

what if you consent and then the guy forces you to go down on him but he has smegma? or has chlamydia but doesn't feel like going to the doctor? or the man has sores on his penis? or doesn't use a condom? flip that to apply to women, and then add on either side the risk of HIV and pregnancy.

really, yeah, so much could go wrong, and i am just shocked at the dearth of earnest argument like this; it's important to remind people who don't really think that this is a dangerous portent.

besides, all this bullshit--why isn't anyone just addressing what it all comes down to? people who slut-shame, including men after they've raped, are saying ONE thing, and we must stop it forever: "what happened to the long dresses and the high necklines? what happened to proper victorian/puritan values?" you are misremembering history, and perpetuating the false notion that there has ever been one entirely prudish culture. low necklines vs. nudity vs. sheer sheaths vs. zero panties vs. netted dresses (ancient Egypt) vs. fig leaves over the pubis vs. jeans vs. short skirts vs. the puritans, who didn't always wear high necklines, and who encouraged heavy petting between courting couples to ensure a good sexual match, and then encourage a healthy, joyful sex life.

this is one of the most oppressive GLOBAL eras. globally we're too aware of each other's shame and adopt too much of each other's anger as well. grow the fuck up, prudes and MRAs...life is bigger, history is vast in our middling brains, and there are more important things in the world, which all cultures knew until electronics, and celebrated, than sex.

and therefore rape.

the deepest caverns of the bluegrass plains in the ragnarok of universal shame

mine.

mine is...it's the one thing i can't understand.

unless it's got to do with mosi being the very first man i had a relationship with

that was pretty fucking awesome, frank, open

and the four-letter word (i can tell because he wrote me an apology note i still have at home, and because he said it was a burden i was permitted to be honest about. i just didn't realize it would

bleed

this copiously

nine years

and mosi's moss's dust, he's really quite ridiculous, acting like rape is only allowed to hurt if the man doesn't romance you for three months afterward--and i was out of love like that, our last IM conversation clincher of clinchers:

he's a fucking slimeball, and i was right to move, move, run, leave for the lights of the coast

and i won't let a slimeball last

and that's what ty said was bad about me, that i had to actually talk to slimeballs

that it's my fault slimeballs talk to me at all

that being ugly determines my status in life as poor, homeless, invisible nobody

that my intelligence means nothing because my face vanquishes any brain cell i've got

his face too frightening for me to see what he really meant: this is the truth

this is your self-fulfilling prophecy and because you won't let me beat that into your head every day for five years now, and you dare leave me when i am the person who fixes you because i am the person who can heal, and you are the example of my success i cannot make this up, the only words of this that aren't verbatim are 'and because you won't let me beat that into your head every day for five years now'

oh, i laughed; i thought i was enough to have that licked

there's no way, jeez, you are not even doing this right--i'm the one who gets to do me, and if i write a novel over a year on my own, then that's how long it takes. if it's eight years, that's how long it takes. you don't get to tell me anymore how jealous you are of my spontaneity, my cleverness, my writing, my writing...my writing, telling me it's me who should be famous because of my fucking awesomeness and my writing...

and scream at me online for hours every other day

it's not enough!
it's not ENOUGH!
that's not enough!
more! more! more! 
it's not enough! that's only two pages! 
MORE! 

knowing i'm on the other end screaming and blubbering and cutting my arms because (but not knowing it's the face, the one i remember on you, bunny, at gallaudet, the one when we met and you were so angry that people wanted you to date an ugly fuck like me...then telling me about how the woman who looks almost exactly like me was easy to use for sex years later, trying to dissuade me from an attraction you always get so angry about that doesn't exist. as soon as i saw you i felt exactly the same way. no fucking way am i going to date someone who is clearly a manipulative wave of charisma and judges me instantly because he hates my face?

i got jon b., you idiot, a fucking hot piece of ass...because...when we saw each other...the spark was clearly deeper than one brain together. you--you do not look into people. floyd looked into me and saw

not my rapes, not you constantly reminding me how ugly and disgusting i am, telling me i'm "eww" and "gross" and "some guys like soft girls."

all of you, trying to tell me i was never thin, that i was never normal, bunny--and you were the worst! chanda was the one who was fawning all over me, the resident butch bisexual, cooing about how i'm actually beautiful and that i can never go back to glasses--god, i'm glad i realized i have always had cha on my side, and that no one can tell me what we had didn't exist, the secret society of brainiacs, sneaking off for two hours to delight in not having to dumb down a fucking word for anybody. but i don't think it's anyone's fault, just something we needed. maybe that's where i've been getting my airs)

but

all my life

all my life...people have called me ugly

so what's his deal?

this:

ty's a slimeball. oh, he told me he would make sure i never got better. but i said he really was. because nobody who isn't a slime ball threatens you like that.

so. what if

because i was with mosi i was able to see that accepting the bad about my abusers didn't make my life worse, only better, right, this is fact--

therefore the equal and opposite reaction is my natural tendency so i don't feel too "smug"--

people say i like to lord fake rape over everyone, that it's a brandishing sword i love to say is mine

but i don't. i want it gone, and it was gone, but it came back--

so something didn't quite heal, and maybe--

it's partly because i actually ran to new york to keep anyone from knowing i had been boxing up my possessions and writing suicide letters to everyone

since the first nice truly sexual connection i had ever had was marred by rape

and he's the one i started writing terrified long e-mails to. i never wrote e-mails that didn't need to be sent

but everyone who scares me the way mosi scared me gets terrified e-mails because i am so terrified of being raped by that person, and right now it's my BVR counselor

and my intro to shakespeare professor one day because the flashbacks just were not stopping since my BVR counselor's last e-mail, and i told the professor in the end that i supposed i would just cut my losses and move on with thursday's assignment, and that was the end of that

so if i know there are important things that require that i stem that flow

right

i think i've traced it right to the source

right

and maybe...it's...that's the only rape that still fucks me up, the others really don't, right, the others are made peaceable by my understanding of life

but since that was the pivot of my pivotal change into a radical anti-rape ugly-ass motherfucker who can get shot to death, in other people's view...

...and i have come to really like this me, but i have never, ever, ever stopped wanting to put mosi in jail

and i ran and ran and ran

and i would love to see the bastard in jail

because he is a serial rapist and gender and age indiscriminate

he boasts about rape

so i'm not sure i've got much time left

and i'm just pushing it all out so i know i'm me by the time i run out of time

honeydew: skankier than it smells

well, this is relevant.

so it belongs here, not at hearingpeoplesuck.

i'm freaking out big time. the problem is that i keep wishing i had my mom to talk to, a mom who would support me. i just asked for a couple of thousand dollars and a co-signed lease; i said i was tired of pretending i'm okay because she likes to shame me, that i'm tired of letting her tell me i'm no good for the money dad left me and the money i threw away in gobs and wads to keep from having her determination that i deserved the incest all over me, because i had goals and they were good, but everyone said each individual idea of what had to go and what should stay was the only correct one, that everyone including me had it all wrong if i didn't do it x way or z way or mv way. 

so it all made me panic and feel worthless, then i figured out how to stick to my groove, how to turn off the rapists' voices and all the friends's voices saying, " if you don't do what i, as opposed to 50 other people and yourself, say, you are lying about being raped and all you do is worthless."  i have tons and tons of work and ideas done, and i was creative without wanting to be. i was terrified of being stupid or silly, and sometimes i only made stupid stuff because i was too scared and suicidal to think i could do better, but as long as i made junky earrings i wasn't completely divorced from myself.

right?

so i've had three men and one woman try to kill me for saying no to sex.

and i don't want to live because that means writing this, and this means greg will hate me forever too.

but greg is there and i'm still in my body, and i don't want to let that scare me anymore. i will never forget how horrible floyd's disgust feels. i made two small mistakes and one huge fucking blitz of an error in one night, and i realized exactly what went wrong when he mentioned it, but

i just feel giggly stupid and "how naive i was!" and suicidal. i didn't fuck up.

and i never, never, never went back unless i had been trying to kill myself for a few days and was really in need of a friendly face to help me deal with a few months of sexual harassment all over the city. then, right, it was mostly greg. and i love greg.

so serene. it was zen. just so gentle and so nothing, no friendship, nothing but wondering and wonderment about each other, gazing at each other and trying to see what we could never cast into another's person.

it was healing in a different way, and it sapped him none. he literally made it crystal clear that i could sit there anytime he was there. this was the man who glowered at me and tried to force me to leave just by flaring his nostrils at me like i was the devil in a sweet shoppe. i don't think there's any reason for me not to love greg for his acts and hope that he's a lovely person and gets wonderful things in life.

so...all this is happening at once: stuff i can't share without going on for ten pages, and my BVR counselor just isn't letting me be a rape survivor, one who thinks she has finally found a bottom to her hell, one who realizes that her looks make dozens of men look at her, me, like no one would miss me if i were raped and killed to silence me.

but i'm cool, funny, smart, a great cook, an amazing friend, want to adopt two wonderful little boys who would never have to worry about being hit or abused, a writer, a real writer, not a shitty one, i love myself--and i don't want to die

except

i can't get any money from my mom, who says my life is about swindling people out of money, that i lie about everything because i learned it gets me money

but i have tried to kill myself so many times to protect my abusers, my parents included...and many, many times...to keep floyd from ever reading any of this...not asked for help, tried to help everyone else because apparently i just keep causing trouble and am just good for being mocked, right?...so it doesn't make sense. suddenly i'm being treated like someone who just wants to milk my family dry when i'm only trying to stop letting everyone who says it feels amazing to watch me fail because they're so intimidated by my intelligence that it feels great to have more than i do...WIN.

i want a car because i'm in danger. i won't tell anybody who seems like the biggest threat but i am constantly in danger at night of being abducted, and of being raped, and since i'm treated like a menace for being white in my neighborhoods, i would like a car, just to know i won't be falling down on ice and snow and being dragged away.

it's happened 3 times that men have tried to make me get into their cars, and once that my therapist said i had to go on a date with a man who scared me and abducted me that way.

that's why i love greg so much. i got over the abduction and didn't really like going anywhere for a while, so i'd go sit there even when he clearly wasn't there any longer either, except maybe on call, and the calm at that bar didn't affect the brusque redhead gawker attitudes from the new kids. i knew exactly who i was.

so. i just tried to make myself die a lot; when i told ty that i was done with that and that he was done feeding my panic attacks and gorging me so that i fell apart and he got to play therapist every single fucking day...he said...because i wasn't pretty and didn't deserve a good job, money, or anything, because only beautiful people do...i would never be anything but completely deserted and destroyed. that i was only raped because i'm too weak to fight off my rapists, and that that was such a failing i was too pathetic to be respected or allowed anything nice.

he knew, i cried out, that i had been BEATEN and HELD DOWN by my rapists. that i tried to make them stop, that i just couldn't keep running in dorm hallways at night, that it just took a toll on me having guys wait until i was out of high school so they could have their turn.

i never had sex, not properly, not sex without rape or beatings, or at the very least truly violent statements about how ugly my face was, that i would never find a man who wanted me to have his children because of it. my body they literally mooned over, babbled about, once they got me naked. but sometimes after orgasm--i'd find out so much more than i ever wanted to understand--

i've tried to get rapists to kill me. i've tried to be silent so you don't think me insolent, you two. i've tried so hard to stop existing, but i miss writing and drawing, and i miss being fun--

not until 2010. i mean, thank you for that, for giving me the courage to do what every deaf friend of mine who has ever said to me, who has mentioned my looks in a derogatory way, which is: "you can only date ugly men," have actually threatened and hit and pinched and slapped me over, even men who get jealous of my relationships with other men, would not want: i trusted in my worth and uniqueness and zaniness enough to only focus on men who are physically gods and mental giants, men who are so secure in themselves that they want more than looks in a woman, in a sexual partner, and actually base looks on character...and brains and confidence...and do not respond with violence to miscommunication, anger, or mirth. even happiness was a problem for a lot of the guys i did not choose.

so all i'm thinking is...i want to live, and i want to give back to the communities i've had a lot of time to understand or realize are neglected by society and urban planning. that's all. so i'm not sure why BVR refuses to allow me to own my diagnosis of PTSD due to sexual, emotional and physical violence--it really shocked me to the core when i realized that men out there have no problem trying to kill me, and it makes me more determined to work with survivors as well as immigrants as a lawyer--i was told i couldn't handle law school and that i wouldn't be considered if i wanted a career in law due to my PTSD diagnosis and now it's apparently a deterrent to being a nurse--so now i am just freaking out because i don't get why my BVR counselor is telling me that because i was raped i'm no longer me, no longer a productive member of society.

i never knew until 2009 what men wanted to do to me. i thought it was just a bad mix of high school kids who heard rumors about who i wasn't, that the real world would be much kinder.

why do men relish raping me? i don't talk about the things they say. i don't talk about the ones who laugh, the ones who imitate my crying and insistence that they stop because it hurts. i don't talk about the ones who tell me i'm ugly during the act, just before or after.

why is it not allowed for me to feel devastated that i'm targeted by men who want to make me feel bad about myself for my looks? sometimes i'd show up and the guy would get up to leave, saying, "i just came to tell you that you should never date anyone. you're repulsive, you're dog ugly, so please stop trying to act like you're worth dating."

i don't know how to stop hurting over that except to become the person i wanted to be: self-reliant, self-assured, an amazing editor, a writer, an educator, an artist. ever since first grade.

so maybe i deserve that car. maybe i deserve to live somewhere safe. one or the other, or both. if i want to stop living in a state of panic why wouldn't the person who gave birth to me understand that i would pay her back within a year or two?

is it because i'm "the most boring person [she's] ever met"? i was seven then; my parents were married and she said that at the dinner table because she wanted me to shut up. because i'm "so ugly no man would ever marry" me? i was twelve then and she pulled over to laugh at me for my bell's palsy on the way home from the hospital when she finally saw it for herself. she said that i already wouldn't have had an easy time finding a husband and that that ensured that i wouldn't ever get one, not with my face melting. she mocked me, too, pushing half her face down and mooing. my mom doesn't actually see me as human or worth anything. who knew?

so i'm going through something huge right now. and this is really scaring me. what do i do to stop feeling crushed? i just want to be successful, but some people really think i don't have the face to be an artist. since when do artists and writers have faces to the general public?

chiming, chiming

i've been punching myself in the jaw and around the brain really hard for a week now. it's all flooding back and it would be okay but the eyes i see

aren't working, i stopped seeing them for years, no more flashing back like this

except one night in L.A. and then until i met jason, the best friend i could have hoped for, the one who wouldn't let me let my friends bully me into accepting abuse

and now since last tuesday it's been

so

i can't stop it, i can't end it

because

intro to shakespeare is inextricably linked to sexual abuse

audism

and i just panic and try

to kill myself--the story unfolds and i'm just not there anymore

i thought that i didn't need it

that locking eyes and smiles

would keep the devastation at bay, guiding

me into a new skin

it's like you went zen in the time i learned i was alone

i can't stop it because i threw it all away

why do i have to see the eyes

to drown out your gray

everything's connected

and right now it's 

but i'll find a way

to hang on

i've been staying alive

even if i'm afraid it'll mean greg won't see me

as anything but stupid and ugly, which i am

but didn't think i was for so long...now i get it

because how could anyone let something so much smarter

thrive? it threatens the hierarchy and it's not a blunder 

that they want me blazing out a whimper

not the thunder that made me

**

the magic 8 ball book is incomplete

i can't find a keychain to attach

and i can draw a better one, not so afraid

can i please stop trying to die now?

can i please...just...be a good person with that just a part of my life?

pestilence and best-i-cans

i've been trying to kill myself for almost four years, i may have said four going on five, but it's been three going on four--

--actively--

--since i tried to go sit at fort greene park to just stop remembering the rapes

stop worrying about how to ask for greg's information and not be creepy, because dominic didn't believe he'd given it to me in the first place and refused to ask for it again

i swear, the rapes didn't hurt anymore; i was learning how to just be happy being me and not letting these men keep me down, telling me i'm too ugly to say no

but that one, i don't know how to explain, it killed my hope, not because of the rapist

but because my heart finally sang when it saw someone's smile and my pussy was all, "totally just got wet, feel that in your panties?" and my brain was like, "then maybe it could become a friendship or even something...something good"

and i knew that i'd been fighting to stay alive for me and that it'd been a good thing, and that the person who saw me at my most terrified and least able to cope

loved, loved, loved seeing me at my best one night

--and how does something so happy--

survive a rape? i was doing some really important things and making great connections

and it was all--

but i see the rape, i see it, it is the only one i still see

and i came here to become someone new, but what makes me a good me is still here

what makes me a smart me and fun me and fuckable

is still here in spades

and my therapist will understand, she will understand why i'm so afraid of disappointing someone i don't know, a bartender named greg who used to frighten me but then turned into the best ally i could have the summer i was being sexually assaulted, saying i could come when he was tending bar

he has my soul more than floyd

and if i tell

he's going to want me dead, just like floyd

but 

it's not me being bad

sexual desire and sexual assault: the occult hermetic within the (f)vault

i find that i've been assaulted by many more men since i met floyd and greg was actually heartbroken for me that night. i've just had no one to ask, just myself to trust when i see a man's eyes go black with "you bitch, you must suffer for not making use of the money i spent tonight! you will give me exactly what i demand you surrender!"

it's the most frightening thing in the world. but when greg saw that i was absolutely devastated, terrified, i went home only to fall prey for darryl. only, since someone really had worried that something terrible had befallen me the night i was threatened with murder and mocked for being ugly and thinking i was worth anything at all, that because i hadn't delivered my beautiful blonde bestie i was lucky i wasn't being murdered in an alley behind some bar (some bar? no, where dominic stands watch and where i'm safe--where the cook can talk dirty for hours and i won't just burst into tears and run home and cut my wrists when he gets huffy that i didn't open my legs...but dirty talk is dirty talk, and sexual touching is when you know the fuck is uuuurp)--that i was lucky he hadn't shown up, that he was just too pissed not to let some idiot like me--and i had only meant to meet him

to see

if the look in his eyes

was what my rapists and ty had in theirs.

then i'd know it's just conspiracy

that angers men, their own paranoia clacking insidious

into the gloom of a glomming

gloaming

for a woman to fall into the rage of sunset.

because greg just looked disdainful, full of nasty "ugly bitch, you ain't belong here!" but not malicious. it was scary; he loomed. he was bulky then (and the last two times i saw him i was literally giving him all kinds of intelligence, history, something oddly obscure, like the truth about pirates and language acquisition. or just really fucking funny. or...just insanely hot in bed and nice. which is a great brand of special. it's like goldschlager, right? been there, done that, but look at the gold! yes, please?

and i'd had some really nice guys in 2010, i was really careful about coming across as the cruelest cunt for ten minutes if anyone seemed a little too interested in sizing me up, and the three guys i was with were the hottest, hottest, hottest shit. and they were fucking nice. one of them was all paranoid about me wanting to be his girlfriend because i told him he was the only guy who'd never beaten me up or been mean, and that i had really worried that he would, but.

floyd and greg didn't. so i was kinda going on a hunch that some really hot guys actually look beyond hotness and come right back around. so he got really mean the second time and we just never could smooth things over. i like the guy, i really do, but he thinks i want him as a boyfriend and i keep saying that "you're really great to hang out with and i don't feel like i'm always waiting for the fist or the rape" is not the same as "i wanna date you."

he was just this side of a lunkhead. he's really intelligent in that he can sell advertising and loves, loves, loves teaching toddlers. yeah, man, we're not going to have this fast-ass discussion about shakespeare and learn seven new things from each other in thirty minutes. it's gonna take a few months, child.

right? so the next guy--he's a genius and the laziest shit this side of the atlantic. absolute genius. model. model, model, model. but wow, that shithole, and his dad--look, if he cleaned up and were employed, i'd have invited him in for a threesome, and the kid (same name, actually, those two) was all, "fuck, i keep telling him that!" and i was all, "i do not, do not, do not...want...a threesome. ever. that would have been my get-out-of-heaven-free card." so anyway, we were totally watching the olympics. i've been through so much i've tried to destroy myself since david hit me later that year, so i can't recall what it was i said...but. zingers. two hours of zingers. then figure skating comes on and i'm like, "no, now we really can't even get foreplay started," and he knew i was stalling. scared witless, but not why. i really didn't want to get beaten up for the experiment or mocked for my face.

so one guy, i think, actually broke his ankle, and the kid got up to take a piss during the commercial, and put away our ice cream bowls, and when he got back--oh, i wish i knew the zinger, because it was the winner, we'd been sharp as needles all night, laughing at each other's prowess, and i was intimidated by his vast store of knowledge...but

then a new skater came on right as he sat down, commercials just over, new track marks announcing the cumulative scores and his name, and i just blasted something about the broken ankle as he was settling in behind me, something to do with the commentary and the incident, and the way the guy was gliding--i can't for the life of me save myself here--

--and he grabbed me, the absolute shock rendered "i can't believe you came up with that on the spur of the moment, not missing a beat, something i never could have formulated for days, that is some powerful brain you have there, and you're deaf!" and it was on like dong, and i mean that gong was clanged. gongs cannot be moved.

we had a few pretty fun conversations and he's the only guy i've ever really gotten kinky with. won't fucking trust no--

--and then i think of greg. and i think he's nice. i don;t know what scab finally soothed and smoothed into a new being, but i like that he changed. it's a real sign of true humanity, finding that which is spoilt within oneself and finding that which unspoils oneself.

the night i saw him last, it is really stupid, i don't know how to explain to my therapist yet, but we're getting there, she's understanding the core and why the core isn't necessarily what destroyed me, but my fear of the core when something i thought was actually one of the nicest things ever happened to me.

it's fucking stupid. oh, the third guy--holla! really cute, nice, really fucking smart and funny in unexpected ways, and so much fun to laugh with before and after. once i actually vaulted off and smashed my nose, and he was all, "oh, shiiiit," and i was all, "fuck, that is exactly the mood we need to keep going for, kid, okay?"

oh, yeah, they were all pretty young, about five years younger. fun guys. but i swear...27 is not the age most guys get into relationships that work, no, never. it's usually when they're looking for answers they want to resolve by 29, so you best bet 28 is a hell of a cesspool.

oh, right, i forgot the korean. whew, he was a fucking model, but 300 pounds was not what i was attracted to in the least, what a brad pitt face, what a hysterical line of bullshit he fed me for hours every time, being in the music-industry mafia and carrying guns, when his parents paid for his apartment and he was a college student! i hated the guy but he'd give me full access to his liquor cabinet and i laughed myself silly, and there was a huge, huge, huge thing there he didn't know existed until i pointed out that it was three times three inches. after a few weeks, he'd been losing weight so quickly because i told him he was a prize i was hanging onto until someone else robbed me, we just dissolved. i really hope the guy got the girl of his dreams and isn't dead of a gunshot wound. i never believed a second of his bullshit. you never know who's packin' in terms of sexual compatibility. i've had a few partners i really fucking resisted up until the sex, and then it was just--please, let me see you forever, or until this dies?

so i didn't want to be with anyone except david, no one, not after i met him. my skin crawled when i gagged at the sight of his face. i tried to leave but i was cornered, and after fifteen minutes of holding hands, i finally looked at his entire face and it wasn't so bad. two months later i let him kiss me and i wanted to marry him. he was just the perfect match already, and that--but--he started hitting me for not being as pretty as her, and for not deserving him because he just couldn't make me pretty. being white was probably a bigger problem than my face, and he wanted to feel comfortable with me, but i was the white devil to him; he started hitting me in the mouth all the time because i'd always have some new trinket or insist on taking him out to eat, or have my other bedroom ready for him with a key and "only fuck women outside the apartment." so he was crazy pissed, right?

and then i saw greg, and it just felt--like i'd been waiting to say hi, just get to know him. because he was glowing. just glowing, and i wanted to find out who he was. sure, rubbing out a few to some seriously bad things was on my agenda, but i mainly wanted to see what he was like.

and i told him about the book i wrote about him, for him. i'm going to do it, the screenprinting, since i'm back in school. he's my magic-8 ball, my cueball in the hulking tees who became an ally, who saved me and keeps me asking: "can i just find my way out of this rape or beating, or at least beyond it, and still do what i want with my life because i like me?"

RESOUNDING
YES

and i threw away the book in the end, i couldn't see anymore, i just started trying to be nothing. it wasn't david.

i say it was david

so nobody hits me

or tries to kill me

because he smiled at me when he gave me his e-mail address, maybe his number...smiled like a thousand suns

and i was happier

than i ever knew i could be

everything was working out, i was putting together three books, buying fabric and a sewing machine and pattern paper for the sketches i had, i was making jewelry like mad, i was accepted to FIT--

--and the kid, the kid, who said i was ugly and creepy all night after begging me to let him couch surf after i said no, i am tired of rape, i cannot afford rape, and you say you would never rape me, you're a kid, go be with kids, don't do this, oh, fuck, you really can't find a place to sleep? come on by, but here are the rules--

and all night, "ew, you're old, you want me!" "look, these girls are hot. they're my age." "gross, you're smiling at me. you're old. you can't get me drunk!" "i want to kiss that girl!" and we were talking about linguistics, neuroscience, cochlear implants, vanderbilt university, the language of music and how it affects his interest in neuroscience, and the plethora of career options. how does he get i'm creepy and want to fuck his brains out from all that? i kept saying, "my brothers are older than you. you're not attractive to me; you're a kid!" sure, i was screwing 22-year-olds, but the kid was a dork, he was a terrified creature, he was clearly jittery from something, and i realized i might be triggering something just by being alone with him and older. he was a total, total, total dork, and he mentioned a girl he really liked hurting him when he was even younger.

so we got to blind tiger and he was like, "YAY, GIRLS I WANNA FUCK ALL OVER THE PLACE!" but then he was getting into me because we had agreed that he's so fucking BRILLIANT that i could teach him to communicate with me in pure ASL at a noisy bar, which became true. we were having lightning-fast conversation and he was becoming besotted. step one: find beth hot via fun discourse

i kept reminding him he wanted to find a girl to go home with and come get his bag the next day. that was the new plan. no, no, following me around, and greg was amused but intrigued, like, what, are they actually...together?!?

so we got back to my place, right by the trees, and the halo behind the kid was so sweet he demanded i take a photo, and greg's e-mail address flew out of my pocket. i asked the kid to grab it, he's so tall and willowy, and he got twisted, his anger was distorted, i remember that face, and i remember dropping. my heart, my stomach, my entire future, my life, dropping, and i ran for it anyway, in the bitter january wind, clumps of snow and the skirling paper up and up in the wind.

he did, then, grab it, crumple it, shove it into his pocket. "why don't you like me?" "what!?" "why do you want him, not me?" "i like him. i know him, and i want to give him something. give it back." and we got back, and we were squiffy--he specified only light beers, and we agreed that one 7% and two lower, one per hour, was fine. we got home maybe two and a half hours after we left the bar, we were so intent on chatting up a storm and taking in the sights. we got home around 4, 4:30, then we agreed to sleep in the same bed fully clothed because we wanted to chat until we just fell asleep. we'd never meet again. that was our entire relationship. one night, one morning. and he was gonna ditch his friends for brunch for me.

but then

he grabbed and we had agreed to sleep in the same bed because he didn't feel like i was a creepy old woman who wanted to have sex with a 13-year-old in a 24-year-old's body

and i elbowed him

thrice

then

i pushed him

then i froze

i hate the flashbacks i get when it pokes me in the ass, the small of my back

and then as i was fighting him off

i realized, "he's only 24..."

as if that makes him innocent; he'd been telling me tales of sexual games he loved

and in the morning he said

"you raped me"

and all i had wanted, all i had wanted

was to ask

"when i give you the book, could we have a drink?"

(this is how i gave up on life. over a bartender, not over a bartender, over a prospect, not over a prospect--

--but over what i thought

was possibly the nicest smile i'd ever seen)

to look for him again, to ask after greg, to seem like a creep, a weirdo who loses an e-mail address that was clearly precious to me--to worry that if he ever wanted to see me underneath my clothes i'd have to tell him "i think about this kid raping me when think about you"--

--then i tried to find david to ask what to do, and instead--i got hit by that car, i was so shattered i couldn't think--

--and no one knows how badly i want to die all these years, three years going on four--

--because i can't just ask someone for his e-mail address

--and if he ever wants to see my glorious tittage

--say, " oh, about that...funny story--"

and watch him hate me the way floyd does. not again, not ever, not twice, no, never.

he's my hero, and i don't want him to tell me i deserved

all that rape

hotly contested: nipples over lace

i tell them "i can see you're _____ and things are costing a lot. i know it's our first date but i don't fuck on the first date." they promise that the extra effort, the extra seventy dollars, isn't a ploy. then it turns out i'm in a park or walking by an alley, or in a living room or bedroom, and one of my proudest moments of escape was when a man had his hands bruising around my wrists and i panicked on the outside but on the inside consulted you both, and then i started chatting, and promising a striptease, swaying my hips, "moving my things out of the way," by the front door, sexily disrobing my feet from knee-high boots, carrying them backward to the door, and grabbing the doorknob and flinging the door open with my boots and bags in hand.

i left behind my most prized books but i can buy them again someday.

i ran until someone else saw me, then walked to the lobby. put everything back on, hailed a cab.

that's not the only time i've narrowly escaped. he tried first in a park, beating me up, and when i escaped he dragged me to an hourly-rate motel. luckily it was a part of manhattan that was cab-dense, and luckily there were two men who were more invested in protecting me than being rape advocates. i was so scared by the way he caught me in the park that i didn't think i'd be alive or listened to if i asked the receptionist for help. 

but the two of you in me helped me believe that despite being ugly all my worth is worth. it's still devastating when strangers want to tell me i'm ugly. my therapist wants me to say i will never let it hurt me but how can someone who hears it dozens of times a year or month or even week for 29 years not feel sad when people call her ugly?

that's not a rhetorical question.

Stayin' Alive, Stayin' Alive

When you struck your finger matchless across the smooth alabaster

of my back--I can trace the dust It was an universe and I was swimming
My head couldn't have spun any more fiber optic if Peter with fairy dust
Or anyone had brought some to a party; angel dust doesn't work on me
but I felt religious then too Just so you know, thanks for the precocious

That finger was silk and the most precious Did you know one touch
could be astral projection Is there anything more forbidden than
one life-changing touch Generations back we are all products taboo
The glitz swarmed around my tattoo and beat voudoun my eyes

Over to you I floated much assuredly flowed into that seat and I
sparkled with you a smile There is a fox resident in you but honey
we share the same innocent sly When you macerated the basil
and I moaned along with you the glint was a toothpaste commercial

Married of a laughter but this was after I signed my contract
as a pair of teeth clacking with a set of perfection right back atcha
when I sank my sorry ass shaken with a toasted marshmallow
the first celebration of Dad for his Valentine's Day funeral, what--ow!

Tom Petty broke my heart as Dad caressed my adolescent face
and promised to be the one who could find the beauty in me and I
must break

to say
I'm near
oh, dear
I think I'm free-fallin'
from the brink of tears for tellin'
what stayed in that living room
so long ago with the very first CDs
overtaking radio
the hands floating
over my hips
I feel sick and please
belong me out of this song
Look at me with your sick
nausea
at what a piece of work
I am
over a mistake but I
will break free
your touch
out of my cage
and I will never

turn my face
was ugly but he thought of me naked and he touched the memory
pretending Bethie Bethie this is how you get a boy Touching all of me

and you were easily laughter No radio silence and the band played on
as I lay my contract bare between us Invisible and your eyes danced mine
thus I traced the lines naked into the aluminum Now I don't see a deck
of knaves shuffling eternally There is one trumps all, the hidden Queen

a rhapsody I keep in a Jell-O castle to keep the glitter from scattering
Encapsulating the opposite of the shattered me from my first love's touch
Back when he was fifteen, oh, I sixteen and he the most coveted prize
of the girls, the reptile in my eyes Redeemed that blue-tinted afternoon

his eyes are still big blue suns and his braces rendered adorable, pastoral
Scene: his pillow-pink lips a Cupid's bow where the only words my direction
"Ugly" "Fuck you" "Stupid" "Polish" "Bitch" "Get away" "Hey! Catch!"
there is no shame in love even later anguish--melted "I love you" then, hotly

"I...I want you to be my first kiss" descended two weeks later into dragging
me by my hair in the same steel darkness swallowing the heavy orange door
It was when I screamed because it was just the hem for thirty feet of peach
Victoria's Secret panties, sheer with woven leaves Now skidded with blood

from the rectal tearing thirty feet of dragging does to a thin sixteen-year-kid
weighing less than her glasses and terror There has never been another touch
apart from Greg's warm hand, which I romance, over ember glows delineate
after vicious rapes, dissolve into the marriage of souls with a glass of water

and toast The man lives a glorious life in my head, his dancing blue eyes
the last friendly eyes I've ever seen Another man who likes the way I look
and won't beat me up for being strong The youngster who met Greg crying
crumpled his number, seething Raping this "old," "ugly" woman How strong

the weakest boys can be in the dark How twinned you bartenders now are
and the drink on the bar Is the elixir of life Apple pie or toasted marshmallow
Shake things up and stand strong in the face of a fist in the nose for saying No
Smiling at the jewels ornamenting Nature and rubber-sheathed cables. Scar

my body with kindness, lash my mind with kinship Bind me with your glow
Give me shelter from the hail of men sixty strong day after gruesome display
Walking a mile out of my way month after month to shake a creep Blind
me with your guiding lights As I return to the apse Ready for the next round

For that first date who corners me where I know silent victims fall Eyes
that tell me I will not live to tell the tale Your eyes and that smile, that kiss
full friendly and full love, not rape Guide my hands and heart still to flirt
as I slowly gather my things and promise a striptease and back into light

he became me

the safe spot

the milkshakes of incest calming into the milkshakes of solitude

offered across a friendship i thought

eternal

insouciant

impermeable

turned into me:

safe spot

defiant even should death come

rapist

(i can read again)