An ugly word

Rape. It's an ugly word... disturbing, infuriating, devastating. It claws at you, every minute, every second. Even when it's long over, years have passed, eternities even, every detail haunts you. What could I have done different. What if I'd dressed different, acted different, said something else, used a different word. It's a word that isn't spoken in decent company. When uttered even in the most private of moments.. it is hushed, a secret held close to the heart. The mere sound of the word can bring back every place he ever touched you, felt you, every motion he ever made. From the way you breathed to whether you understood what was even happening. The violence that the act evokes is not in the action itself, but in knowing that you are nothing more than an object. The scars it leaves are far more than the ones on the surface. Much more than the bruises on your body, much more than the hurt you feel on surface. The knowledge that you are not safe, you do not belong to yourself or that you have no power. The utter helplessness of the moment he lay on top of you, the knowledge that even with all your strength you could not fight him. No amount of telling yourself that it wasn't your fault will ever change the fact that it happened. Especially when the one who did it is someone you trusted with your life. There's no cure for rape, there isn't likely to be one, not for all those who suffer under the guise of "war", not for those who fight battles everyday at home. It's easy to blame the drink, the circumstance, the conditions on the ground... but its hard to take responsibility for it. Hard to own up and say that what you did was wrong, hard to believe that you could be that person. And harder yet to believe that it happened to you. Sometimes you just need to hold on to something, or you'd be swept away by the force of your own despondency. It is impossible to look at rape up close and be unaffected by it. It will change you. Forever.

Finding ... someone

Lets start this again. Like we never took a hiatus.
It's been two years since I wrote last. 2 years... seems like an eternity. I don't know what it is today. Strange, but I felt like it's been too long. I've gotten lost. Lost in this crazy humdrum that is everyday life. In the wake up-brush teeth-take shower-drive to work day. In the little things that slowly take over your life. The latest TV show you just downloaded. That kilo of fish that you just went out and bought. Who have we become in our quest for the simple things in life. I wonder if everyone feels the way we do. Maybe they do, but just don't write about it. Big dreams get replaced by smaller ones, the smaller ones by tinier ones, the tinier ones by the simplest of things. In school we wanted to rule the world, in college we wanted to be something, when we started working we wanted to stand out and now I just want to survive the workday. Someday not too far from now, my dream will become just to wake up in the morning. I'll become the embodiment of the mundane and the tepid. The same one that I feared terribly. My goal for the day will be just to get through the entire day without straining myself. I fear that maybe its already here. Maybe the biggest things in life aren't like a Hiroshima or a Nagasaki, there's no explosion, no massive cosmic event that erodes your belief and makes you wonder what the hell is happening. No, it's more like the slow erosion of a rock by the river. The ever flowing river just keeps going and going, eating away at everything you believe in, slowly wearing you down, until there's really nothing left of you, nothing but your bare soul, naked for everyone to see.. all your fears, your desires, everything you once were is washed away by that incessant flow. Slowly but surely, you're nothing but dust and particles at the bottom of the river.