my vagina monologue

I want to stay home.
In a way hidden and still not quite safe.
But where the sense of safety is just enough to help me fall asleep.

Truth is – I am tired.
I am tired of the silent tension in my body keeping vigilant in the dark alleys of the city running through my veins. A tension I am supposedly used to and yet tonight I want to be where I can breathe a little deeper – a little slower.

I would like to fill both my ears with music and drown in the emotions that flow from it. I do not want to have one ear keep on alert… just in case.
I don’t want to worry about the alcohol I consume in my neighborhood in the bars I deemed safe and yet having it somehow misunderstood.

I guess I am tired – of the constant ways of womanhood.
Every dream destination mixed with gentle waves of fear of what may happen if I were to be alone. Desiring the false sense of safety from being with a man – who hold the power to alter my breathing from ease to gasping in the blink of an eye.

I seek stability and shelter in a place truly safe.
I seek a time where I can break down and let the pain pour without judgment or responsibilities. All seems too much to ask. Too much to attain.

So I wrap my arms around the small frame of my body.
I caress it with whispers and chants of words it deserves to hear.
That I am great.
That I am strong.
That it is okay to be simultaneously so fragile.
That ultimately I am enough.
And that I am loved – most importantly by the two arms holding it close.

So excuse my weary smiles that drop the moment your back is turned.
Excuse my early exits and goodbyes.
I want to be home.
Somewhere hidden and yet not quite truly safe.

Law and Order True Crimes: The Menendez Case

I slept with a knife under my pillow at night.
I was sure he would bust in one day and kill us all.
I didn’t want to die – not like that.
The threat was real… as real as oxygen is needed to breathe.

Unless you have lived in a realm of ongoing abuse for decades….unless you have lived in fear of your own family… I suppose this may sound like exaggeration, a type of fabrication of a sick mind. This show is a trigger of a past I purposely made blurry so I could live and forget.

Today though I did make a revelation.
One that was already there below the surface but became clear.
My tendency to self-hate and to self-blame all boils down to this.
It was all my fault back then.
Every beating, every scream, every violent action he made was a fault of mine.

I should not have angered him.
I should have not opened my mouth.
I looked too defiant.
I should have known better.

His actions were described as something out of his control, something he didn’t decide to thrust upon and exercise but rather an involuntary reaction from us. We were trained and told to read between the lines. That despite it all it was all an expression of love – a sick one but love nonetheless. That he meant well, that he didn’t know any better, She made excuses on his behalf perhaps convince herself of why life was the way it was. We were to understand him. Never he to understand us. So it was. Just like this. No real communication just eruptions of uncontrollable anger. No real solutions just a repeat of a broken record replaying the hidden meanings of love behind the bruises.

I get it now.
How I came to be the way that I am.
I was trained to be this way.