G U T S @midnightapparatus - Tumblr Blog

I think arguably one of the only things worse than ignoring / denying a victim of abuse is accusing them of being the abuser. Especially given the fact that most abusers use tactics like “you made me do this” or the old “you are abusing me by calling out my abuse bc it makes me feel bad”. The victims who escape those situations often face a long road in their ‘next life’ of internally focused paranoia and constant moral inventory taking; afraid that setting a boundary, or being firm (or being in a bad mood even) is behavior that is too reminiscent of how their own abuser acted. Trauma altering the ability to differentiate. Having to muck through the dense fucking mud of “Am I a bad person, and that’s why this happened to me? Maybe it was all my fault…” A truly devastating phenomenon.

tiredandlonelymuse

He learned to make a fire in the woods, he says. As a child with awkward hands and fingernails bit down to the blood draw, he was a small intruder rustling through the brush. He shows me how he does it, in a cold house on a hill. An “X”, a tower, a steeple, open it up and see all the people. I watch solemnly from the collapsing couch and bend my bare toes forwards and backwards till they might break. The little flame isn’t taking. I watch it hard and I will it to grow. I first tense the arches of my feet, my calves, my thighs, my shoulders, my arms, and my teeth. I stare at the clumsy pile till my eyes salt-burn and beg me to blink. Grow little flame grow. It catches, and with it, his face. The satisfied smile tears across his cheeks in tandem with the center log toting new flames along its spine. He doesn’t know that it was me. I don’t say anything. He’s too proud. One day he will make a fire out of me. One sheet of my dry skin, crushed for kindling. 5 brittle bones for tinder. Poking and prodding in a brick cave, he will blow and give it life. I will glow, with orange meringue peaks along my back. He will smile. He doesn’t know that it was me.

-Date with an Alchemist, 2022