SIMPLY ELABORATE blog

Archive for the ‘the past’ Category

we had to write about rape in my creative writing class a couple of weeks ago. i’ve been putting off posting this poem on here because it affected me too much to do it. i’ve finally done it. it’s here. not broken up, not one big long paragraph because HTML isn’t working. it’s just here.

waiting to be read. it was my first A in creative writing. i’d never gotten an A before. i had never thought my first creative writing assignment mark would come from this.

“enjoy”. as a disclaimer; it may be a little harsh for some people.

---

i smile
as i walk
home
wrap my winter
coat
around my waist
to strengthen
warmth

i hear
footsteps
but think
no different
than a fellow
scholar scurrying
to the heat
of home

i slow down
to let them
walk around
my slow pace
and realize
i should have
sped up
instead

my throat
clenches
in fear
with an unknown
arm
wrapped
around its
frailty

the familiar
surrounding
becomes
an open mouth
horror
fright
a forever
altered view

my feet drag
along the
asphalt
my fingers
entwine
with the
chainlinked fence
as one

i feel sweat
running down
my neck
i feel dizzy
my eyes
darting
about to
scream

stop

around my throat
is no arm
down my neck
is no sweat
against my throat
is metal
down my neck
is blood

just enough
he says
so you’ll be
scared enough
that i can feel it
but awake enough
so you can
too

it’s my
fault
i should have
listened
and walked the
other way
like mommy
always said

if i’d worn
pants
it would not
be so simple
to rip my tights
underneath
my kilt
right now

these things
i wish
as he becomes
the first
to cup my breast
to whisper dirty
thoughts
unwanted

i try
to look
remember
eyes
stubble
tattoo
breath
but i can’t

already
trying
to forget
the way he
used one finger
to trace
and then jam where
he shouldn’t

so numb
and clenched
in panic
hoping to
be enough
to resist
to no
avail

i’ve been
punctured
no other way
to describe
the feeling
of his
manhood
inside

i think
i’m crying
but i can’t
tell
i’m trying
to move away
the metal
deepens

stop

i can’t
breathe
but i’m not
sure
if i’m even
trying to
i just want it
to be done

he’s speaking
to me
like i care about
what he has
to say
moaning his
corrupt
happiness

my mind
changes
and i suddenly
want him
to slice
me open
to sweat out
my pain

thrashing
my body
trying to
entice him
to cut again
instead
he removes
himself

stop

comes closer
to my
face
and says
he’ll have to
shut me up
some other
way

i see it
in every form
of its
ugliness
of its
stiffness
i want to
rip it off

so he may
feel
something so
precious
taken from
him and
never
given back

his hand
on my chin
prying my
jaw open
i bite down
he throws my
skull in
retaliation

it’s unfair
that he gets
to retaliate
and i am
forced to
take it
just the way
he likes it

i don’t know
what he
expects me
to do
with his
organ
waiting to be
pleasured

do i look older
or experienced
does he think
i know what
to do
with this thing
sitting
there

about to
bite or
scrape
just something
to get it
out
he leans in
again

stop

don’t even
think of
playing a
little hero
he says
the metal
warm with
blood

suddenly
i hear
someone
not just
someone
a big hero
who just
walks by

doesn’t even
notice
but it’s
enough
to scare
his organ
his metal
away

i wait
until this
unknown
someone
continues past
and i
get up

and i
run
and i
run
and i
run
and i
run

stop

I was home for a couple of days this week for my reading week, and while I was out for coffee with J and L and we performed the usual “what’s new” chat before we delved into deeper topics we all came to the conclusion that nothing was. When we were in high school, there was always a drama filled discussion that needed solving or figuring out. We figure that after university is done, we’ll have information/catching up talks all the time about all the changes in our lives. For now, though, we’d figured out that we’re stuck finishing school and there’s nothing “in between” right now. I didn’t like that thought but then had to agree when I can’t even throw out a meaningful entry on this website that started my pseudo career in everything media related. I am really busy, doing a lot of things. But there are definitely times when I’m doing nothing and wishing I wasn’t.

I have my car here now, thanks to a creepy cab driver who felt the need to hit on me a couple of weeks ago while he was driving me home from work, and just knowing I have the ability to leave my apartment whenever I wish has me a bit comforted. Unfortunately, something else I realized while returning the videos I rented Thursday night: there’s nowhere to go in this city, especially when you’re here by yourself. It was a glimpse into what my summer is going to be like: nobody here, nowhere to go, nothing to do – fabulous.

When I was looking for the key to my front door, I had a memory about what I used to do when I was younger and alone in my room. I would walk up the stairs, pretend that my house key was the key to my bedroom door and go inside, shut it, pretend to lock it on the inside and “hang up” my keychain on the nail next to the door. I would imagine what the interior would look like and sit on my bed with a book in hand and read, whilst pretending I was in my future living room relaxing after a hard day’s work. I never thought too much into the future when I was growing up, I imagined this life where I could be independent but always assumed that was when I had a full time career and a different life. I never thought it would be some sort of premonition of my life in university. I grilled veggies for lunch and talked to my mom on the phone today, pacing around in the emptiness of the apartment and basked in the loneliness of being connected to someone. And I felt the familiarity of what I would feel while reading that book on my childhood bed, pretending I was somewhere else.

What do you do when there’s nothing to do, nowhere to go or nobody to see? You imagine you’re doing something, going somewhere and spending time with someone, which feels more pathetic than not doing it, so I don’t. I write these entries instead while listening to music, watching muted TBS movies in the background and chatting with friends online who are miles and miles away.

I can’t believe it’s already March, almost the end of March, actually. This time last year I was in Rome, Italy, getting ready to say goodbye to all my fellow companions and head out to see the rest of the country by myself. I was scared, but excited, mostly because I didn’t have to wake up by alarm at 6:30 am anymore.
I had gone with the school group back to the airport and took important instructions from the tour guide we had on how to get to my new hotel on the other side of the city. I was supposed to take the train to Roma Termini (the main subway station in Rome) and then hop on the subway B until I got to a stop near the Sistine Chapel and then take bus route sessantadue (72) until I got to the Pisana Palace. All the while carrying two carry on bags and a suitcase with wheels behind me.

I made it to the Sistine Chapel before I got lost. A nice man helped me carry my suitcase up the stairs out of the subway station and I walked around endlessly trying to find someone who spoke English or would at least understand my broken Italian. There were bus stops on every street and I was so confused. I didn’t know what to do because no one could help me. I circled the area endlessly and got freaked out when I noticed the time getting later and the sun beginning to set. I definitely didn’t want to be wandering the streets of Rome alone with my entire luggage lagging behind me. I just wanted a taxi to drive up and save me, but there weren’t any around, which I just couldn’t believe.

I tried to remember exactly where I was, recognizing the area because I had visited it a couple of days before with my group. I walked uphill around the outside of the Sistine Chapel, determined to find the main strip of stores. I did eventually find it, but when I did I was so bombarded with people that I got increasingly more freaked out. I called out for taxis endlessly but they just drove by, ignoring me. I felt so helpless.

I walked over to a monument in the boulevard in the middle of the street and sat down for the first time in two hours. It was pointless for me to find the right bus stop because my transfer from the subway had long expired and it was Sunday so I couldn’t buy a bus ticket anywhere. They don’t take change there, just tickets for everything. I buried the side of my head in my hands and looked around me. The one good thing I noticed was that nobody was paying attention to me, so I wasn’t embarrassed at all. I almost wanted to cry, but couldn’t even find the tears because I was so frustrated.

I took a deep breath and decided that I was going to have some gelato to calm my nerves. I was struggling to retrieve my purse from all the baggage when all of a sudden a car pulls up in front of me on the street. My first instinct was “shit” because I didn’t want to be picked up by anyone. Then I noticed that it wasn’t an ordinary car – it was my saviour – a TAXI.

I reveled in my luck, I wasn’t even trying to get a cab anymore, and one just plopped itself in front of me. I graciously thanked the driver as he put my bags in the trunk and smiled for the first time that day. I shut the door and looked at the city around me, suddenly not so scary anymore.

And I saw that I had sat down beside a taxi stand.

I realized that it doesn’t matter how helpless you feel. If you are patient and look at things from a different perspective – you’ll find exactly what you’re looking for. And realize that you already had it.

Do you ever wonder about the people that you knew when you were back in elementary school, the mean ones, funny ones, the ones that tormented you until no end? I was flipping through some writing blurbs that I did last semester in my writing class and I saw one of the pieces I had done was about this girl who would get the whole first grade class to turn against me for no apparent reason and make recess hellish for me. When I look back at it now, I can’t even fathom as to why she did it, or why she had that power over everyone else. I wasn’t the only one of her “victims”, but I can’t remember anyone else in that class. She is the only one that survived my memory. I can’t even remember if, during those times when I was not the particular sufferer, I was a follower to this girl’s cruelty to others. I hope not, but a sneaking suspicion makes me think that I was. We all were. I think that is why when I changed schools, and was quickly taken in by the “cool people”, I was a little apprehensive. My eight-year-old self was apprehensive about being asked to play tag by the cute boy with dimples that everyone swooned over.
I had reason to feel like that though, by the time I was in grade six, I started to see the familiar pattern of making people feel like shit who weren’t in the popular group. Only this time, the person didn’t change everyday so that anyone was game. If you were in the “cool group” you were safe. And to get to that cool group? All you had to do was rag on that unfortunate person. I didn’t like it. And I definitely didn’t want to be a follower again. So I switched whom I hung out with, but because I was still somewhat friends with these people, I was spared and wasn’t tormented. That was until I stuck up for a girl they turned on when they decided that their “cool group” had people who weren’t so cool. I talked back to them. I threw the footballs back at their faces when they threw them at her. Then I was just in their way and they started to throw them at me as well. Then I went to the girls who were watching and whispering on the side and yelled at them for ditching their so-called good friend and leaving her there to fend for herself. I told them what I thought about their values on friendship and how they made me sick. I think I scared them. No one ever tried to throw footballs at me the next day, even though I had defied them.

It made me sick and to this day, it still does. There’s nothing that can be done about it, it’s all in the past. But do things that happen in the past really effect your future? In grade six, it didn’t. The next day all was forgiven with that girl that I defended and she was back on the side of all the action, laughing and whispering with all those girls who had left her to hang on her own the day before, while a new girl was plucked from the group and the same fate was assigned to her. I guess I really hadn’t scared them, just voiced my opinion that went unheard, apparently.

Sometimes I wish that I could go back in time and stand up for myself more often or for those other people, but a part of me likes where I am right now and would never want to relive the past. Who wants to go back to a world of frivolous gossiping, bed-head hair and secret misgivings about someone you go to school with. Oh, right. I haven’t escaped that at all. It’s called University (AKA Elementary School all over again). It’s starts off as a venture into something new and exciting and turns into a shallow race to get to the top, taking down anyone who’ll let you. It does, however, teach you that you can’t rely on people to defend you and you must always stick up for yourself. It’s the only way you get respect – and the football thrown out of your path.