Scarred
It was taken from me
It was ripped from my grasp
The sacred ability
to connect with my Love,
to rest
in his embrace with abandon
without fear
but behind my mask of passion
there was a little girl in tears
I would give all that I have to go back in time
To rewrite our story,
my story,
I’m not sure if I would change what happened to me
Would I change my father’s actions,
remove the abuse,
set myself free?
Would I be me
without the pain and the fear?
Without the darkness in my memory,
the demons,
the terror?
As I look in the mirror,
I can see so clearly
the ridges and the canyons
carved by my tears
Along the jagged heights,
the deep valleys,
the steep slopes
Are people’s stories that I’ve carried,
that I’ve embraced,
that I hold close
I refuse to dispose
of the love that has grown
from each of these narratives I’ve come to know
I would not for the world rid myself of that depth,
of that intimate understanding of a human’s breadth
But for my Love,
I would,
do whatever I could,
to redeem our relationship
of the pain it’s withstood
If only we had known before I approached him in white
That my mind was damaged, my body broken, my innocence a lie
Would that have changed the way he and I approached
each other’s bodies on that fateful night we drew close
Could we have prevented the shock when my eyes
beheld his body, safe and gentle, deemed “good” by God,
by me despised
I cry every time I remember those first days,
the nauseous stomach,
the fear of intimacy,
the ways he held me in patience,
in confusion,
in love,
the way I saw a doctor to ask what was wrong,
I think of the way I have lived as a wife since,
convinced life would be brighter, purer, richer without sex.
I think of nights awake in bed filled deeply with shame,
the way I would force myself to perform every few days,
the knotted pit that formed as evening approached,
the smile on my face so that he wouldn’t know,
the disdain for pleasure,
the rejection of touch,
the way my body jerked to protect my back at all costs,
the assumption it was normal to fear the sight of a man,
normal to pretend enjoyment was had,
the way I’m attracted to my husband until he drops his pants,
the way my body shuts him out at any weighted glance,
I think of the way I would let myself float
away from my body until the act came to a close,
the way my mind could not focus on his face or his touch,
the way I would replay an old movie or what I ate for lunch,
Our love has been robbed of a chance to fully live,
to be vibrant,
to flourish,
to be completely, intimately, connected
Regardless of healing or moving on,
this will forever be my story,
our story,
one that is bereft of ease,
of carefree nights,
of consistent open access to my body
despite a true longing for unity,
for a love filled with abandon,
for a way of interacting that is not laced with trauma’s burden.
But despite the pain
and the lack of hope,
we hold onto a realization that this has caused us to grow
to a level of relationship
that we never could have reached
if this abuse from my father
had not permanently scarred me.
