Genesis: a poem written by a trichotillomaniac

It rolls neatly off the tongue

Like the kind of disease that makes friends easy

And doesn’t pick you apart like vultures overhead

Has it always been jerking around in this body?
Bouncing around like a game of pinball

in a Georgia diner machine?
Ready to fling it’s force around at the suggestion of thought,

the leverage of a hand

Trichooo-tillo-maniaaaa

I can overcome it, I know I can

Wait no, an hour passed me by and

wait no, another pile of discarded hair on the floor

Again. And again.

I am balding at 15, hidden by bangs and switched parts

the strands are slipping into my dreams

Becoming trees I can never seem to prune so that

I won’t raise my hands to my head, now deceased leaves

That float to the ground and I pretend they’re not from me

Trichhhh-otillll-omania

If I say it enough maybe it’ll go away,

Kind of how if you say the lord’s name,

the demons refuse to stay

I want to behead this tree

Leave it as a stump, short stubble atop scalp

But I’d feel as naked as Adam and Eve

before they discovered sin and found pleasure in it

And I am my own forbidden fruit, constantly at war

with the urge to reach up and grasp it by the roots

letting my hair fall like plucked petals

a rattling relief followed by goring guilt

tomorrow I’ll be ashamed but

it’s not my fault

Triiii-chotill-omaaaania

I can overcome this, I know I can

I’ve been going to my dream tree,

and it told me that someday

it’s branches will be wild and

it’s leaves will be free

the dream tree told me it might just be a while  

until I can be me

Surviving After

The dictionary defines survivor as: a person who survives, especially a person remaining alive after an event in which others have died or suffered. When others think of this word, they think of war, natural disaster, cancer survivors. There’s this air of admiration because they’re thriving against the odds, they made it. There’s this atmosphere of awe when someone who is remarkable walks into the room… except for when there’s not.

Why is it that when someone bears the burden of rape, the room becomes heavy? That no one says “I want to be as strong as her” or “he’s someone I look up to ”. Why does everyone tread on sea glass and hold their breath, as if they’d inhale the ocean salt, for this percentage of people? Why does society not believe it to be wrong that for every four women, one has been assaulted, that I will always be in a room with one of these women, even when I am alone?

The answer is this: they do not consider us survivors because they do not think we are victims, do not think us to have survived something of weight. Well, let me tell you about weight because some of us find it hard to get out of bed, just like amputee war veterans. We hear gunshots ricochet in our head even when it is the kind of silent we all listen for, we flinch when someone moves too quickly, we don’t like when men hug us without permission because there are some days when every touch is a reminder of something lost instead of gained, something that became a flashback instead of a memory, now a reflection in the mirror of a person I could not bear to forgive. Let me tell you about weight because shame is a heavy burden to carry. I used to stare in the mirror and and feel my world slice open, an old wound reopened.. Until I didn’t.

Because I am not just a victim anymore, but a survivor. I still flinch at fists raised for fist bumps, but I will not apologize. I will not say sorry or explain when I push them away because I have reclaimed by body as my home and it is mine to put fences around if I want to. I weep for the 25% of women I have never met, but somehow know, because I have met so many people that cannot bring themselves to be angry at someone else other than themselves, that cannot forgive their oppressor because they have not grieved, that will not press charges in fear of ruining someone else’s life, even if it could stop them from ruining another. I once met a girl  who said “it was my fault, I got into the car”, even though they made the choice to violate her and now she is falling apart, pregnant at sixteen with a disease she never knew about. It is time to stop telling women that it is their fault because of their clothes, because they got into a car, because they were too unconscious to say no. Because if your penis is that uncontrollable, it should be locked up. Because consent isn’t sexy, isn’t an accessory, it’s mandatory.