i woke up afraid, it was a big day. i was supposed to represent my school, i was an ambassador from the high school. i was well adjusted. i was supposed to hype middle schoolers about their experience. i couldn’t stop replaying the rape. i couldn’t shut it off. i’d spend years there. i’d missed more days than i should have, trying to turn it off. imagining it over and over, the same movie was stuck on repeat. i knew i had to answer for my tardiness, my unexcused absences. it didn’t occur to me on what felt like a perfect day, but i woke up and knew it was time. i couldn’t excuse myself anymore. i couldn’t keep being so mediocre and trying to explain it; i’d gone too far. i had failed more than i could escape. i woke up, i could have gone to school. i had plenty of time. i was dating a boy, trying to be normal. when my entire life was in chaos, i just wanted to be normal. i didn’t want to be gay, i didn’t want to remember my rapist validating his actions with imagining i was sexually frustrated, telling me he and my best friend wanted to tag team me. i wanted all of it to stop, all of the noise. i couldn’t make it stop unless i was drunk or high, so i reached a point that i realized i couldn’t keep functioning. i was afraid to wake up. i was afraid to go to the store. i was afraid to go to work. i was terrified of existing if that meant spending every moment reliving my rape. i couldn’t tell my peers; they knew carli. i couldn’t let them know, because then they might further judge her. i could tell my sister, maybe my mom, but i didn’t want it to feel heavy. i didn’t want them to feel what i felt. i woke up and sent my boyfriend on his way, but as soon as he left, i grabbed a pill bottle and the booze i had stashed away. i started, pill, shot, pill, shot, pill shot. chain smoking, trying to drown every moment i couldn’t turn my brain off. i was dumb and naive, i didn’t realize that not all pills kill you, i just thought prescription would do the job. i was 30 pills deep when i called my sister, i didn’t mean to. i just needed her to know i loved her. then i started getting calls, i realized i might not have done the deed. so i went for more, drank more, and soon her boyfriend’s mom was there asking me why i did that, over and over asking why i would do that. i remember when the paramedics arrived, i was so tickled that they thought i needed a stretcher. my home was roughly 1.5 blocks from the hospital. i was trying to be respectful, so i obliged. they would ask me questions i tried to be reasonable with; i feel okay, but this is your job. i took 43 pills. i drank half of a half of vodka. yes i will sit here. it all seemed so bizarre. they loaded me onto this stretcher in preparation for my 25 second journey, and out of the back of the ambulance, i saw the most obscenely beautiful, crystalline blue sky. like, a heart throb of a sky. and i felt instant remorse; i didn’t want to die anymore. i was scared, then. i really thought it was too late, like they wouldn’t be able to stop it. roughly 1 minute later i was at the hospital, i don’t know the times, but my family started coming in. i understood heartbreak when i saw my mom. my sisters were there, my brother was hard but broken. it sucked. i felt my actions fully. my principal and vice principal showed up, i begged my mom to dismiss them. i couldn’t see them. i was admitted to a center p quickly. they kept asking me if i was suicidal, i tried to be very honest, but saying “i’m not suicidal but i also didn’t feel suicidal when i tried” means “she fuckin cray suicidal,” so i was considered very high risk, 15 minute checks, can’t sleep in the normal dorms, gotta sleep right by the nurses station. as soon as you almost sleep, you get a check, which is a flashlight cutting through the fluorescent bullshit.
eight years later, i don’t feel suicidal. eight years of hard work, i don’t want to die anymore. it’s crazy, standing in the moment that the voices go quiet. i’m not weak anymore. i’m not someone who is lost to who i was and what i could be. i am good. i am getting better. i don’t even have to mutilate myself anymore. i feel happy, not in a manic or extreme way, but in a reasonable way. i feel valued and loved. i know maybe this won’t last forever or for long, but i am grateful. i could’ve died all that time ago, but i never would’ve met my favorite people. little lo would be proud. big lo is proud. i’m really grateful i didn’t die. i’m really grateful i’ve been lucky enough to meet the people i’ve met.
