One woman riot.
“ Put on your face
Know your place
Shut up and smile
Don’t spread your legs
I could do that
But no one knows me, no one ever will
If I don’t say something, if I just lie still
Would I be that monster, scare them all away
If I let them hear what I have to say”
-MILCK
Music has always been my calm and my zen rousing my inspiration for words to fall onto the page. This song by MILCK has been on my mind all day. I’ve lived in hiding all these years. I put on my face, I didn’t know my place, my legs were spread with no volition of mine.
Yet I was silenced.
For shame, for guilt. I was afraid for the dishonor of my family and the concern that would bring to their defiled unmarried girl. I was afraid of the professionals I worked with finding out and having a perverse view of me, inviting another uninvited advance. I was hushed and silenced by the invisible forces that convinced me of my doom.
I was silenced into trying to take my life, to disappear into the unwelcoming abyss for my time for the end was not yet scripted. I tried to no avail. Here I stand with all the secrets, with the heaviest of deadweights that were coined my sins.
In contemplation of the new year, my thoughts go to affording forgiveness to hurt toward me and seeking forgiveness for all I have trespassed in all our interactions. I offer this all in my energies, in meditation for the true cleansing of my soul, to find peace in my soul to let go of all that make heavier the deadweight I have been emptying a morsel at a time over all these years.
Today I was asked about the monster that ravaged my body leaving my empty carcass to fill with guilt and agony that knew no end. I was asked if there was forgiveness in my heart for the monster. The demon that killed all that was me and handed me the torment to wear burned into my skin. Though I have never given thought to it, the words spewed out of me as if they had been there all this while. “I don’t really care to forgive or not.”
I’ve put much more thought into this.
There is no forgiveness to be afforded by someone who’s already dead. The monster killed the girl that used to be jovial and full of life, future bright and beautifully paved. That girl no longer exists. To me, it no longer matters, forgiveness has expired its meaning in my healing. It was a stone on my cobblestone path in life. Passed and overcome, forgiveness no longer matters to me.
There are no wrong cards, all that has happened, has happened as it was meant. There is no joy nor grief that lives in that stone anymore. All is as it should be. I am headed toward my true north and that violation no longer serves my journey but to remind me of the strength and power I possess in overcoming the agony I didn’t understand as a young girl. But now I am a woman and my path is glorious and clear in its manifestation. I will walk this path.
This coming year, along with the peace and love I have jarred for the comfort of my soul, I also bring my voice. These pages a megaphone screaming my arrival. No longer will I be silenced. This year will be the year of a reckoning, truth telling and healing for me, healing for all around me. I will be a one woman riot.
I can’t keep quiet.