Hey. How’s it going? Remember me?

Remember that time I told you it sucks knowing you’ve affected my life more than I’ve affected yours, and you said that wasn’t true? Here’s the proof. I’m still unresolved about you; you seamlessly cut me out of your life the second I started standing up for myself. How far did you go to forget me? Did you delete my number? (I am cursed with having yours permanently memorized. Trust me, I tried to forget it.) Do you think about me? Dream about me? Have any guilt at all for ignoring me?

Have any guilt at all for raping me?

Have any guilt at all that you got away with it?

If it hadn’t been you who raped me, I think you would have been one of two people I would’ve told about it happening at the time. And since I know you’re a charmer and have made lots of friends like me over the years, I can’t help but wonder…

Have any of them ever confided in you that they were raped?

How would that feel for you?

How easy would it be for you to validate them?

How easy would it be for you to not think about me?

How easy would it be for you to not flash back to the times you’ve raped?

Sometimes I don’t think about you. Sometimes it’s like you don’t exist. But when it’s like that, it’s not because I’m healed or because I’m so taken with my present life that I simply don’t have room for those memories. (No matter how happy or overwhelmed I get, you’re there in the back of my mind reminding me that I’m not safe.) When you’re not there, it’s because it’s become too much to bear, and everything becomes a little fuzzier until I can’t recognize you in the background.

Which would you choose: Delirious but free, or awake but afraid?

What’s incredible about the way you’ve chosen to end this is you’d think it would really push me over the edge of acceptance that you do not give a shit about me, and yet..

I guess the amount of times that you’ve treated me like shit and swore you cared have been really deeply ingrained, because now I can swear for you that you must have cared.

Remember that time during the abuse that you decided to ignore my texts all day? You know, one of those days where I thought I might be pregnant and you still weren’t letting me tell a soul what was happening despite me begging you to let me almost daily? You know, when you forced me into isolation from everyone but you? Then one day you decided to ignore me all day? I spent that day sleeping in my sister’s bed, waking up every so often, going to the bathroom to text or call you, and when you ignored me going back to sleep because how else was I supposed to survive that day? Remember how sometime that evening you finally texted me like nothing had happened? I remember that day. I can still feel the helplessness in all its heaviness from that day in my heart when I think about it.

Last night I had a dream that there was a terrible hurricane coming to town. I was running around taping windows, getting food, moving breakable and loose objects, getting the pets shelter…. and calling you. Obviously it was a dream, since you answered. We spoke on the phone, and you know what I wanted to say to you? I wanted to make sure you were okay. I wanted to make sure you wouldn’t die in the hurricane, that you had somewhere to go. As the hurricane came and spun my house around 360 degrees I was on the phone with you. You’re who I cared about. Over everyone else.

Some nights when I can’t sleep I think about you, and I wonder if we really never will speak again, and I cry.

But you’re done with me.

Like a banana peel, thrown onto some neighbor’s lawn, their problem. Remember that? I guess I should’ve seen it coming.

Sometimes I remember how you touched me and I feel you on my body and I feel disgusting and sick and angry and useless and empty, so empty, worthless, but mostly disgusting. I feel the places your hands were and I want so much to throw up (but I know I won’t. I haven’t thrown up since right around the time you stopped touching me, no matter how nauseated I’ve been.)

I don’t know what I even want to say to you. I just want to scream. I want you to see that you didn’t pacify me, and I want to see it with my own eyes just how much you aren’t phased by what you’ve made of me.

I guess right now I’m blaming myself for not being clear enough for you to understand what you’ve done, and that if I could just explain it better and show you honestly then you would understand, because I still believe if you understood you’d actually step up and take responsibility. So this is me still being in denial that you are the person you’ve proven yourself to be; this is me still feeling responsible for how much of a monster you appear to be. This is me wishing you would just do me the favor of being a little more clear yourself when you imply that you actually are that monster.