Learning the Words

It’s like when you’re little, and you peek around the corner of the hallway into the living room where daddy is standing in front of mommy, and she’s on the couch not saying anything except “I’m sorry” while he yells and she cries and it’s normal.

It’s like grandma laughing about the time she tried to shoot grandpa in his sleep, even pulled the trigger but the clip was empty, so after that she settled for throwing cups of hot coffee at his head or staying out past the curfew he imposed on her and it’s normal.

It’s like your older cousin calling you hot and grabbing your bare thigh, pretending to help get dirt off your legs while he salivates over your prepubescent tits, but he tells you he’s just trying to help your self-esteem and you try to believe him because you’re family, so it’s normal.

It’s like your brother coming up with games that meant getting naked, trying to get you to “touch it” until you start playing dirty truth or dare with him and your little sister and you’re too scared to tell because daddy pretended to choke him against the wall for less, so you play along in the woods in secret and it’s normal.

It’s like when you’re 14 and your crush starts calling you hun, and you sext him on your mom’s desktop even after you find out he’s 21 because he’s hot and wants to marry you someday, and he tries to come see you at the high school until your brother scares him off but it’s okay because you’re in love and he’s going to sneak you to a hotel room so you can have a romantic night together and it’s normal.

It’s like when you get to college and you meet Zack online who talks about hand jobs and oral and how badly he wants to please you and it’s dangerous so you agree to meet with him but you start getting nervous and tell him no the day before so he gets mad and calls you names and tries to come over anyway and instead of telling anybody you just block him because he’s a guy and you teased him and it’s normal.

It’s like when your roommate has a friend who jokes about rape and puts his arm around all the girls he knows, but he can be funny and it could be fun and he stares at you like a free steak after a fast so you let him stare at your boobs and you sit on his lap and keep telling yourself you’ll get out if it gets bad, but a year and a half goes by and you stop saying yes but he doesn’t stop fucking you so you cry after it’s over and tell him you love him because he scares you like Zack and you already left your parents and hid from your friends and you should feel lucky because you’re wanted, so it should be normal.

You don’t realize it’s not normal until it’s been six months since you left him and you’re sitting in front of a therapist because you can’t figure out why your head got so fucked up so you talk about your parents and try to dissect the ways they abused you, but she keeps circling back to him and your brother and your 14 year old crush and you’re confused because they all loved you, and you shake your head because rapists grab girls in alleyways who scream and carry pepper spray. She reminds you that you told him no, but you insist that he loved you. Your therapist looks sad and lets you change the subject so you pretend you never have flashbacks or jump when people touch you or have nightmares, and when the hour is up you don’t make another appointment and you don’t come back until months later when you finally learned how to say the words “he raped me.”