The Fallout

This is for those who are still trying to figure out if they should tell their stories. It's okay if you're ready and decide to do so. It's okay if you're ready and decide that you don't want to share. It's okay if you aren't ready at all.

I am a survivor. Let me take a deep breath and say it again. Maybe it'll come out stronger and clearer, but I will not apologize if my voice trembles and breaks. I'm a survivor.
When you ask me about the first time I fell in love, I'll smile and say that I've been craving tragedies ever since.

You see, our story--his and mine--isn't unique.

It's a story that has been repeated countless times throughout history. Marked by bruises, cuts and fear instead of being evenly and neatly divided by chapters. It's a story protected by dismissal, disbelief, and silence. It's a story that my grandmother knows well. Maybe yours does too.

My mother warned me against men who threatened to wrap their hands around my neck and squeeze. My Tia warned me against men who raised their hands at me, leaving behind split lips and bruised eyes. My father told me to be weary of men who raised their voices at their mothers.

What my family never told me is that there are more elusive and silent ways to kill us, both mxn and womxn. Abuse doesn't discriminate.

It wasn't that he laid a hand on me, even though years later sitting on a chair in my therapist's office a memory would surge that would leave me breathless and screaming. (How could he, after everything I told him, how could he ?) It was the words he whispered in my ears, the constant checking of my phone to make sure that no other man had messaged me, and the warnings to not go out late in the afternoon. Going out at night without him by my side was out of the question. There were books I wasn't allowed to read. Family members I had to avoid. Sex was always on his terms.

I wonder if he remembers telling me that my mind was broken, that I had no logic and that it wasn't my fault--it was the fault of all the traumas I had endured before I even uttered his name. We had to make every decision together, because he had promised to protect me. And I believed him because I was fifteen, hopeful, and in love. And more than anything I was wild and ambitious. I remember him telling me once, only once, that I was destined for greatness; I leaned against him and felt like the world was at our feet.

"How do you know?"

"I look at you and you can just see it." (Does he remember saying that?)

But let me tell you, his lips were both poison and honey. Depending on his mood, he'd try to build me up or tear me down, leave me breathless or wounded. Tied down or floating. I wondered how it was possible for a man to tell me I was beautiful one moment, and useless the next. I wondered how it was possible to carry so much guilt (for leaving him alone when I was at school, for not giving him enough attention, for trying so hard to convince myself that it would work out) that I was drowning in grief that wasn't even mine to begin with. I made myself so small, that I forgot what I sounded like when I laughed and to this day, I'll forget that I have revolutions inside of me. I made myself so small that when the passionate, wild side of me broke out during class discussions, I looked unstable. And maybe I was. But I don't look back too much now because I survived.

I'm glad he made me choose between him and my mother, because I looked back and counted the years.

I stayed for four years, a time of constant tearing and building, and looking into mirrors wondering where I started and he began. So I had four years of laughter, because not all the moments were filled with fights that ended with apologies crawling from my lips. Four years where he held me when I cried about a past that still rips me apart in the present. Four years of thinking of a future that had small children running in our home. Four years where I didn't have any close friends. Four years where I had lost the ability to truly, deeply, and honestly connect with another human being.

But I had nineteen years where my mother had looked at me and said that I am a person, a woman, and free. He should have known that while I was capable of betraying and losing myself, I have never been capable of leaving or losing my mother.

So, for a second time, my mother gave me life.

I am still learning what it means to be vulnerable. I'm still learning what it means to make decisions and not toss and turn at night, wondering if it was the right one. I'm still learning to not be afraid of my voice. I know that I'm lucky, because I could have ended up in a morgue and instead of a classroom. More than anything, I'm still learning how to forgive because I refuse to lose my compassion. (Don't get me wrong, I'm not gonna go back and I'm never gonna forget.)

If there is anything that I learned it's this: I am valuable, I will always be valuable. I was not born to be subdued. Mujer soy, y en mi esta el cielo y la esperanza.