Author: tochooseahappyheart

Do you remember how you chose me?

Do I ever cross your mind?

Do you think about that choice

As one you’re willing to remake?

 

Do you have nothing to lose?

Nothing at stake?

 

Nothing you fear might happen,

If you make a mistake?

 

Are there people that you tell,

To brag or even laugh?

Are there others you have decided

You would also take?

 

Have they told or kept it secret,

The ways you took them too?

Their memories of terror,

Stealing sleep, lying awake.

 

How our hearts ache…

 

For God’s sake

Tell me why,

In the choice you made,

We didn’t deserve

To partake…

 

To have to act out another day,

For months it felt cruel.

If I wasn’t yelling or crying,

It was a struggle to wake.

 

You filled my heart with anger and

You took away my hope.

I can’t remember how many times,

I wished for an eternal break…

 

Hiding, lying, denying.

Binges, booze, and drugs.

Anything to distract me

From using the emergency brake.

 

To keep thoughts of

Pills,

Cutting,

Jumping,

As options I wouldn’t take.

 

You chose to do this to me,

To destroy the person that I was.

And your reason?

Just because?

Why did you choose me?

How did you choose me?

Why was that choice only yours to make?

 

Did you see me for only a second

Or follow me from bar to bar,

Deciding that I was yours to take?

 

Did I seem easy?

Naïve?

Unimportant?

Perfectly wasted?

 

Your night too boring,

Too dry,

Too lonely,

Getting frustrated?

 

Was it my dark blue skinny jeans,

Maybe my awkward nature,

Or the shots I was taking with a friend?

 

That made you assume,

My night,

My fun,

My trust and sense of safety,

Deserved to come to an end?

 

Did slipping something in my drink

Make you feel less guilted?

Or did it assure you

That I wouldn’t leave you embarrassingly jilted?

 

Did I push back

Or fight?

Did I threaten you with no?

 

Did people stare?

Did they question,

If I had wanted to go?

 

How can I live

With the fact

That only you know?

 

How can I live

With the memory

Of waking up in that car?

 

Jeans unbuttoned, pulled down.

Backseat, doors locked.

“How did I get here from the bar?”

 

Stumbling down from the garage

To the hotel lobby.

Panicked thoughts began rushing,

“What on earth happened to me…”

 

Terrified and alone,

I fumbled on the phone

To call the only number

From memory that I know.

 

I can’t.

 

Incapable and lost,

I frantically looked around

For one familiar face

In the drunken crowd.

 

When back with my friends,

I could see it on their faces.

 

Irritation and doubt.

 

Again, I’ve sent them on

One of many drunken chases.

 

They won’t believe…

I can’t believe…

This time it wasn’t my fault.

 

I promise I didn’t want

To become the victim of assault.

 

I sobbed as I tried to make sense and explain

Everything that happened to me after I went MIA.

 

They pulled me in,

Hugged me tight

Told me everything would be “alright”.

Yeah… all right…

 

“I…I need a rape kit done please”

My whisper seemed to echo in the hospital.

And for a split second I considered,

Ending it all.

 

Then the doctor shattered my belief that

A rape kit would say

Who?

Why?

What?

Had happened to me that day.

 

As I spoke with the police,

My truth seemed less real.

Strip your clothes,

Scrape under nails,

Swab for semen,

It all seemed like a great ordeal.

 

So I left.

I said stop.

My dignity the only victim of a theft.

 

I found my parents,

I went home,

I cried all night,

Feeling alone.

 

Little did I know,

There would be

Months and years

Of complete misery.

 

Depression,

Alcoholism,

Anger,

OCD.

Once again

Why…

Did you have to choose me?