There came a time in her life when her body became her own prison. She would gnaw at it, scratch the skin off the surface or take frequent showers to wash the smell of that night out of her skin. She would pull her hair out, lie frazzled in bed for days without sleeping, reliving the horror that was slapped into her face every time someone asked her how she was.
Flashbacks of unwanted, uninvited fingers probing her crevices drowned her as she tried to surface from under a wave of disgust and self loathing.
She remembered everything, but hoped to forget. She prayed she would wake up and all that she felt was a part of a never ending, torturous nightmare, but the nightmare never ended. Soon, she started praying that she would never wake up at all.
For every person that told her it wasn’t her fault, a dozen or so passed their judgement. They violated her too, by constantly probing her mind – unwanted, uninvited – asking her what she wore that night, if she had been drunk or if she shared any semblance of familiarity with the violent intruders. For every person that told her that her clothes did not matter, that this happens to women – fully or scantily clad alike – countless bystanders raised eyebrows at her morality and upbringing. She hated herself at that point in time, but apparently, so did everyone else. She wanted to blame the perpetrators, but the world was ready to point fingers at her. She was the victim, but she lived every day like a culprit.
There came a time in her life, not too distant from this form of absolute self imprisonment, where she tied one end of her scarf to the fan and the other around her neck.
It was the one she was wearing that night – she thought it would be a fitting end. If everyone considered her to be filthy, she would die by choking due to that very filth. There she was, standing on the edge of her bed, hovering between life and death, when she finally exhaled and let her feet find the air.
There came a time in her life, much later after a wave of retrospect and soul searching, when she thought back to that day – how her fingers – decisive and determined – scrambled to undo the scarf around her neck as she writhed in painful breathlessness, knowing it could not end this way. She would not be another body found in a dorm room. She refused to be another statistic, another article readers scrolled through as they switched between different links or another segment of the 5 o’ clock news. She was more than that. She had not seen it when she had the time. Clarity hit her as she struggled for oxygen and fell to the floor as the scarf came undone. It was only when she had her breath knocked out from within, that her senses became more alive, forming answers she did not see before.
That was then and this is now.
She is at a point in her life where she can talk to others who have been through the same. She can counsel them, tell them what made her fingers untie the noose that had encapsulated not only her neck, but her existence, from the day she had been subjected to that form of animalistic brutality. She can talk past the cliché – the ‘what would your family do,’ the ‘think about your loved ones’ or the ‘you know you’ll burn in hell.’ She knows what hell feels like – the burning sensation within every cell of her mind serves as a reminder. She also realizes that none of those statements work. She knows that in that moment, you do not think – you decide. In that moment, you have to fight for yourself and against yourself, all at once. You have to be your own hero, you have to battle your own mettle and save your own self against the rage and hatred within your being.
That was then, and this is now. She is not happy, she has not forgotten, but she knows how to be strong for those who falter. She knows how to be a symbol, even if her power is contained within her small circle. She is familiar with resilience and valor and is a home to those who are not. She knows how to undo the nooses of all those with their feet merely inches away from the edges of their beds.
She knows how to go on.
