Eve

I was told recently that I look like her, you know, Eve. Or the image of her. I don't know what to do with that. This person described her as a sort of innocent and clean beauty. Something one would possess if born of total innocence and purity, I guess. Which is a compliment. Don't get me wrong, I appreciated it. But my hummingbird twitched in a way that told me she felt unsure of the compliment and it brought her to remember others.

On the subject of hummingbirds, however, it should be noted that after having read my last post several times over, I have come to the conclusion that the flutter inside my chest isn't so much my heart as it is the abused little girl. She will always be my hummingbird, though. No matter what that represents, her entity is a fragile, sweet thing and I will do what I can to preserve her.

On the subject of compliments, however, it should be noted that they are not normally enough to stoke the fears I have harbored. But Eve? The harbinger of sin? The image of lust? My hummingbird didn't miss the connection. My hummingbird likes to remind me, in terrified squawks and chirps, that she recalls being told she was chosen. She recalls being told that she was the preferred choice because she was prettier. Whether that happened or was a twist of memory in a nightmare shortly thereafter, I may never know. But I have the memory she gives me.

It was when I was nine, or ten, or nothing at all, that I started believing that those things happened for a reason.  I started to think that there were only two options: be the prettiest and use everything to my advantage, including but most certainly not limited to anyone attracted to me, or that being abused was what my body was for. "Lie, manipulate, steal if we have to," was a mantra that made its debut in my nighttime prayers but quickly became a melody humming through me. Every time I wrote my name, I thought, "Wrong, this isn't me". I thought, "One day we'll be powerful and make it all dust". But that was only the first option I saw. The other option led me to think my life was there to be taken, not lived or loved or remembered. It was easier to believe in the second option, so I did for a time my bird sings as years.

In the timeline in my head, the years go from fifth grade to freshman year of high school. Whether it's true, I won't know. I believed in being taken and used so much that I do recall, with shockingly distinct clarity, wanting to be kidnapped. I wanted more than a lot of things to be stolen, to have years gone. I believed if that made someone else happy and fulfilled, then it was the thing my life was for. That's why when one man asked me to do things to myself, I did them. That's why when that man led me to other men and women, I did what I was told. When I was told to, I sent pictures. When I was told to, I sent a video. When I was told that if I didn't do as I was told, my family would pay for it, I believed it. When I was told that he would find me, make me sorry, I took it as a truth that both frightened and encouraged me. Part of me believed being taken would've relieved all my worries, I could finally just be what I was intended to be. Part of me thought that there might be something else to find, but that part only whispered a descant.

My hummingbird is ashamed. She curls into corners and I feel her losing her voice. She molts until she is left naked and only reminded of the body she never wanted.

The compliments are what bring us back, baby bird and me. Cute became adorable, which turned into beautiful, and morphed into sexy, then became fuckable. And it just became. And it never should have. And I try to hold my naked hummingbird and shield her. And all I know to do is sing her the melodies she sings to me on her better days. So, Eve. She and I, we have never been Eve. We have always been singing.

Hummingbird

On occasion, things just kind of fall into my lap. It has happened a number of times and on several different days. Once, it was cold coffee I'd forgotten to throw out. Another time, someone else's hungry hands. Shreds of vibrantly orange, popped balloons. Salty little water droplets my eyes gave as gifts.  A dog's tongue with all its slobbering glory. A PlayStation controller, soaked in sweat and mucus from a cold's triumphant hours. Today, words came out, and instead of spilling onto my lap with all the other crumbs and juices that seem to erupt from me in similarly ill-timed moments, they flooded my veins and overtook my heart. Now I sit with a familiar hummingbird inside me. A warm, fluttery thing. It's alive and the sputtering beat of the thing makes me nervous for it. I know I've ignored you, baby bird. I'm sorry.

The thing about writing is, I never know where to begin. There's always too many beginnings. Too many places from which I feel my hummingbird's rhythm gets too lumpy, uneven and swinging from side to side like one word, one pitch out of sync and it'll tumble away into some sort of chest cavity it's hasn't seen yet. Maybe it'll get lodged into a lung and I won't breathe. In moments like these, I feel like if I move, the bird will die. Or get lost. Or just declare me unfit for habitation and leave all together. 

There are other times when I tell myself that while, yes, my story is important, there is no reason to tell it. There is no one who wants to read, hear, or discuss it. I also am plagued with the fear that my story gaining any sort of attention will only lead to my family's distress. There are times when I think someone I know personally will tell me I've misrepresented everything and shamed us all. Sometimes there is a little part of me that thinks someone will know my story and find a way to make it into something different, and that makes me want so much to scream every single note my bird has sung. A policeman will pay for my college tuition and my real parents from MagicalNeverSadAmazeland will tell me I'm actually the princess of all things fluffy. They'll take me away and make every discordant melody of my bird's memory distant and feather-light. Other times I believe if I don't let the words out in some form or another, my bird will never be content. She will live in her uneven and uncertain life. So, I post with all of her uncertainty and I tell my story to the best of my ability, knowing full well that there are no guarantees and that expectations only make your bird uncomfortable. 

I was diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder a little over a year ago. It occurs to me, with a frequency that makes my bird... flighty, that I have very little understanding of the timeline of events. Some days I tell my therapist I was five. Some days I was eight. Some days I never had an age at all. Some days I wake up and wonder if I just made everything up. I'm told all of that is normal, but I'm also told normalcy is an illusion. 

Just before I was diagnosed, I began writing in a journal. And the notion that no one would ever read it was comforting and frightening all at once and in such dramatic intensity that the bird would both sing and screech. I decided to make this public because when I was clutching the leather binding of the journal on the way to the mental hospital, I wept. When I was stripped of my dignity and my clothing, my bird wailed and the cry felt like it would fill not just the rest of the empty spaces in me, but the spaces connected to every set of hands checking my body and every pair of eyes filing my curves into cabinets of  relentless and similar shames. When a man told me the tears I'd shed had to be mopped from the floor by someone, my guilt forced the bird to sleep and I wrote down the fluttery heartsong in blue ink that waxed and waned over pages, over pages, over pages and then stained my hands. I decided to make this public because I want the ink and the song to make some sort of difference. I cannot allow her song to go unheard. 

Years before my diagnosis, I was five, or eight, or maybe nothing at all. I went to my siblings for entertainment. I made straight A's and when my father cooked I stood on my beige "helper-stool" to see what made things sizzle and smell like love. I watched as my siblings fought. I watched my brother beat up monsters that would plague my dreams for years. I watched my piano teacher's fingers and I mimicked them until my bird sang the songs my fingers plucked from the pages she gave me. I watched the wall, and heard the movie, when my brother's hands slid into my shorts. 

I know I asked what was happening. I know I was assured everything was fine and normal. I know we moved to the bed. I know the frame was wooden. I know there was a blue wax stain on the wall that matched the hue of the sheets. I know it tasted like watery snot and bunched up flesh. I know I hated the kiss. I know my bird beat unevenly. I know I thought if I spoke he would be taken away, erased, beaten, and every evil would be my fault. I know it ended quickly. I know it lasted forever. I know if I close my eyes at the wrong times, I relive everything my body has kept me from. 

Today I've typed until my little hummingbird's song felt soothing. For now, she is contented. She will sing again, though. And when she does, I will let her be heard.