bathing in sound, tears and trauma

It is dark, I am in a pool, and she is banging a drum. I am dancing with my shadow in the water, my legs moving gracefully back and forth, my limbs making different shapes on the concrete wall as I move them to the steady beat of her heart. I glance away from the shadows I am dancing with and down at my body, real and bare, something I rarely do. Most of the time I don’t look if I can help it. I have worn baggy clothes for many years to hide. This time, though, when I look at my 100-pound skeleton, I see the beauty of it. My legs are treading through the water, smoothly and with ease, I can feel and see that they are attached to me. That they are attached to my soul. That this healthy body is mine. Barely here, but mine.

The drum stops and I turn to look at her through the mist. My mind wanders to recognizing she is doing the thing that heals her. Today her doing the thing that heals her is healing me too. My thoughts scatter, realizing I am so exposed and here in her presence. In a sea of community alone with my memories. It throws me back into that room. Just moments after he is sobbing to me about her, I am confused. He is inside me and there is nothing I can do. I am writhing. He is in my face laughing, his drunk breath repugnant as he whispers “I feel like I’m crushing you.” 

They are words that have been haunting me for years, keeping me away from others, teaching me a lesson on boundaries. I feel my throat close, remembering the awful sounds against my will as tears once fell and now fall down my face. My stomach drops and I bring my knees into my bosom, hugging them with one arm as I hold onto the pool ledge.

My body is mine. My body is mine. I know my worth. My past has no power over me.

Everything is a blur, I am spinning, I am cold. I am suddenly out of the depths. Her sparkly eyes are staring into mine and the words, “it was wrong” are echoing through my awareness. She embraces my frail frame. I am soft in understanding arms, releasing the intangible. I pull away and stand boldly on my own two feet, seeing her beauty, now accountable for mine.

I grab my bikini bottoms that I nearly leave behind. They are not lost. A piece of me is found.