Little Earthquakes

"Rape's not something where you just go, "Well, get over it" or "Believe in love and peace, my child, and it'll all be over." Well, fuck you, that isn't the answer. It's a great thought, OK, but you can go and stick crystals up your butt and get on with it. I'm all for love and peace, but that's not the side I work on. If somebody would talk about it, or worse, joke about it, I would be ready to kill. That's not healing. It was a very long time after that before I was able to be with anyone again. And it has never been the same as it was before"
- Tori Amos

A part of me would love to face you someday, as a survivor, with a life that’s more fulfilled and productive and successful than yours. I would desperately love to be like that. That’s what would count as justice to me; I would love for you to have no power over me, for the memories to have no power over me... I have so much work to do before I can to that point. Maybe it’s true that the first step is telling someone, admitting it and accepting that it does impact on your life that it’s not just something can file away in your mind to never be opened. Someone here, Martine I think, told me that it was like a splinter that hurts to take out but infects you as long as you keep it in. It’s not in anymore but it definitely hurts a lot more than it has ever done, a lot more than it did at the time. Deep down I know that it’s the right time to confront it, now I’ve made that first step I can’t take it back, even if I feel like complete crap to the point of suicidal ideation as a result of talking, I know that I can’t put it back in my finger and let it fester. Once it’s out, it’s out, and it changes how you relate to everything, everything is a threat or a memory trigger or a reason to lock yourself in your room and rot with the memories and the depression. I don’t want to do that, though, even if right now it feels like the only thing to do, even feels like the right thing to do or the only thing. I spent a long time thinking that it was you who needed to confess, to apologies, but I think now it’s more of a case of confessing and apologising to myself. Feeling like a have the right to hurt over it and to try and heal from it. I'm listening to this song a lot recently, I think because you feel so alone you connect to anything and then suddenly you can it opens things up, it opens yourself a little bit, and you feel a little bit stronger to stick two fingers up at the people who doubt and say that it's the girls fault, or what she wore, or how she acted, or how much she drank. Or that it's a fate worse than death and anyone would chose death over being raped. You start to understand how the myths work and how anyone who says such bullshit clearly doesn't get it., or get what it's about for the person commiting it, that they don't care really about killing you physically they just want to break your soul and have complete power and control over you. I still stand by what always thought, that it wasn't the reason why I got ill because I was ill before it happened, but it doesn't help and it stunts my recovery because I've left it there and let it fester.

5am friday morning
thursday night far from sleep
i'm still up and driving
can't go home obviously
so i'll just change direction
cause they'll soon know where i live
and i wanna live
got a full tank and some chips
it was me and a gun
and a man on my back
and i sang "holy holy"
as he buttoned down his pants

you can laugh
its kind of funny
things you think
times like these
like i haven't seen Barbados
so i must get out of this

yes i wore a slinky red thing
does that mean i should spread
for you, your friends
your father, mr ed

it was me and a gun
and a man on my back
but i haven't seen Barbados
so i must get out of this

and i know what this means
me and jesus a few years back
used to hang
and he said "it's your choice babe
just remember
i don't think you'll be back
in 3 days time so you choose well"
tell me whats right
is it my right to be on my stomach
of fred's seville

it was me and a gun
and a man on my back
but i haven't seen Barbados
so i must get out of this

and do you know Carolina
where the biscuits
are soft and sweet
these things go through your head
when there's a man on your back
and you're pushed flat on your stomach
it's not a classic cadillac

it was me and a gun
and a man on my back
but i haven't seen Barbados
so i must get out of this
i haven't seen Barbados
so i must get out of this