something you should know about me 

You are the reason round and round again I replay the scenes in my head because every now and then, they’ll flash back at me and attack my reflection in the mirror, a bleached new identity of what used to be her.  Because of you, my tongue was left scratched, sedated, still too afraid of what I’d really like to say, because you have a way of making sure victims feel invalidated. Truth being, is that my hands start shaking when I start thinking into that school year, sinking into that memory of that girl whose words remained on her lips for five minutes until they were dead letter, and I just won’t let her break through me again, it’s my only skeleton that I’ve kept far in the closet hidden behind millions of coats and the times where his tongue brushed my throat but never met my lips because I guess kissing me would’ve made me human. You made it easy for me to feel ashamed of how I just sat there and let him. A history that he desecrated, left me with the words “Mandela effect”, spinning the facade he created. You are the reason little girls have learned to let their scars and tears go forgiven, why my heart pounds when I think I smell him. You are the reason I’ve learned to speak with my eyes closed, because I’m afraid of what everyone’s pupils will tell me, maybe if they dilate it’ll mean the masses believe me. Either way, It’s been a good two years and 257 miles and I still feel guilty. I refuse to believe that manipulation can’t transcend distance, because when you say the words “it didn’t happen” I can still hear him. You made it easy for our stories to seem worthless. You made it easy for boys like him to walk on with a golden speck of victory in their eyes and that happy memory of holding bruised thighs. And yet you wonder what’s weighing down the bags under my eyes? Go on and tell me I think too much, so much now that I believe that my words aren’t even english but rather endless knotted sorts of gibberish I’ve learned to keep at the back of my mind, and at the depths of my esophagus. I guess after swallowing so much my body just had to regenerate from all that rotten. I refuse to give any of that credit to you, because I’m the only one responsible for how much stronger I’ve gotten. I refuse to let you think that you were the ashes I rose from, it was my body, it rose to action at the call of my drum. It rose for anyone else that has been left without an identity or sense of direction, praying for any sort of godly or governmental intervention, only to be betrayed and dismayed by people like you. So, don’t be confused when you are left punished by the warriors you once called little women. Remember, you were the ones who chose to spit into the eyes of fallen soldiers and tell them they deserved the bullets.

 

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Tabatha Botti is currently a full-time student enrolled at Florida State University. She is studying both Political Science and Editing Writing and Media in the hopes of getting a masters degree in both majors.

 

Take a look at Rosa Maria De La Luz, also by Tabatha.

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