TRIGGER WARNING: this share describes violent facts and feelings. Don’t read it unless you’re ready to face them.
These facts took place when I was between 17 and 21 years old.
Ten years later, I dreamt about it, a nightmare so terrific that I woke up sweating and with diarrhea. I then wrote this poem.
I met someone from a non-profit association devoted to helping prostitutes, but was too terrorized to state clearly what I had escaped. Nevertheless, he “heard” and understood what I was unable to say: gratitude!
It took me 26 more years before I was able to read this poem aloud during a 12 Step meeting. The emotional mechanisms described seemed to me so consistent with what I had progressively discovered about abuse and PTSD…
It took me 6 more years before I was able to give it --at last!-- to “the one who had heard me”, when his association organized one more militant exhibition. I entered the room, shook hands with him and said: “Sir, we met 32 years ago and had a conversation saying so and so, and I never forgot it because you were the only one hearing and understanding my story. During all those years, I wanted to send this poem to your association with all my gratitude for this former conversation, but never dared doing so. Today, I dare at last! Thank you so much, despite the 32 years delay!”
And today, aged 64, I dare send this poem-share to ComLine, as a message of hope: even if it takes 32 or even 42 years, it is possible to tame unbearable and unspeakable memories of unbearable and unspeakable experiences. Recovery is possible... as a loooooooooong process, not an event. Hold on! This too shall pass!
All this helps me believe in a LOVING Higher Power who saved me… and helps me believe that the numerous other unbearable and unspeakable memories I have to share will someday, even after 32 or 42 years, become bearable and speakable.
Fear
She only had her Moped,
A lot of ideals inside her mind,
“Love and peace” and “We’re all brothers and sisters”…
She rowed in her small galley.
Parents, school, then university
(Not enough to graduate A Level);
They said she was clever,
She had to be satisfied with that;
But she was in her teens,
With no landmarks, in shifting sands,
Feeling uncomfortable, uneasy with her life;
What she needed so badly were friends.
And all money and diplomas
Weren’t worth a boyfriend;
She would have given everything
For a tiny illusion of love.
One day, bursting with loneliness
Between her beer and her studies,
She accosted a young man in the street
Because he looked so attractive.
When you’re a student, it’s easy;
Don’t be so prudish,
We chat, we are on familiar terms;
Trust is the rule.
They went to the movies
But she ignored, by then,
Who he was, what was his job;
She believed only what she saw.
He seemed a little layabout,
Yes, but no more, let’s say,
Than some of her student friends
From her “self-righteous” environment.
He was handsome and had humor,
Played the lover role,
And she craved so much for love
That she believed all his smooth talk.
Used as she was to be subdued
At school, by teachers,
By her parents, by any authority,
She submitted herself, seeing nothing.
Not bewaring, she met him again.
She liked him more and more.
Yes indeed, he could be rude,
Made loudly fun at her,
But she, absolutely unaware,
Forgave him in advance,
Happy to thus show
How much she already loved him.
She made it a point of honor
To willingly forgive him
And considered as abnegation
What was only submissiveness.
Half-lost, half-fanatic,
She longed for self-sacrifice,
But, so doing, intermingled
Trust and naïvety…
One day, he asked her
Ten francs: she gave them.
He didn’t care enough
To say “Thank you” or “I love you”.
She told herself “I must understand”,
“He will change”, “He will learn”,
“As he loves me, he’ll listen to me”,
“With time, he’ll evolve”.
She dared not ask him questions
About his life when without her.
Obviously, he didn’t like that:
He avoided, made himself scarce.
And then, one day, she doesn’t even remember
Why they were at odds,
He suddenly became threatening
And required money immediately.
Her whole life toppled over;
She tried to quit him
(Although she still loved him,
Heartbroken).
“No way! I won’t let you,
You come back tonight with 200 francs,
And if you don’t have them,
Sell your ass!... or beware!”
Bewildered, upset,
Flabbergasted, in a panic,
She tried to refuse,
But she was in such a trap…
She loved him… That weakness,
It was not just for a few caress,
It was more than that, more than all…
And suddenly all that collapsed!
He threatened to break everything
At her home, and everywhere she went:
At her friends’ homes, even in the coffee-house
Where they used to meet.
She would gladly have given her life,
She’d rather be engulfed,
Be dissolved, be annihilated,
Herself, yes… but what about her friends?
She struggled in full horror;
Her whole life sweated fear;
Every second lasted a whole hour,
Telephone was a terror.
It’s in the midst of such anguish,
In such a bloody mess, such agony,
Made crazy by threats,
That time had to pass.
Time, and Providence
Put an end to such violence.
She finally could escape
The claws that had clutched her.
Escape?... Yes, indeed, she was living,
Hadn’t prostituted herself,
She worked, she ate,
With pills she “slept”.
From nights haunted by nightmares,
She emerged, haggard;
She was living, but under the make-up,
Lived daily in despair…
Even today, ten years after,
Terror still dims my eyes…
Geneviève R
