I would have prosecuted you back then

If I had known you’d affect me this way. That I’d be having numerous nightmares of that night, that it would seem nearly impossible to get you out of me, or to experience healthy intimacy.

But that Bri was scared of everyone and everything, including you, someone using her body as if it was a doll while drunk one night, and she was young and naive, so there is no point in feeling shame about not doing that. She couldn’t have done it then, so there’s no point in this Bri beating herself up about it.

I’m sad today because I know you’re currently abusing another woman. I see it happening and there’s nothing I can do for her. I hate that I see these things while scrolling social media and that I am still friends on Facebook with people who are friends with you. Good. Let them see this. Let them click on it and question.

I have this blog. Where I can continue to talk about what you did to me. Maybe one day you will read it, and you will probably threaten me like you’ve threatened her with some of your actions, because you thought you could keep me silent. But there is nothing you can say that would make me scared of you anymore. You have hurt so many of us, and I have already dangled on the tightrope between life and death in processing what you did to me so I have nothing to lose. My truth is what keeps me safe. Me standing strong in what I know keeps me healthy and not sick. I am releasing those dark moments a bit at a time. And there are moments like today where I swim in my darkness and can’t get your grossness out of my energy or my body. It feels dense and intense, on top of everything I’ve managed to survive in this life.

And so I write this today for every rape survivor out there who doesn’t get to hold accountable the person who hurt them. For every rape survivor who has been mistreated by the justice system while trying to tell the truth. I see you and I feel you and I believe you. Keep talking about it. I will too. It keeps us alive. We can make it through.

I write this for her, too, someone who was slandered and treated terribly by a community who believed your words and not hers. I don’t blame them, I was tricked and believed them, too, until it happened to me.

And to you. You can’t have my power or make me feel small. You can continue to make poor choices and traumatize women for your own self-interest, but with each word I write I promise the trauma only releases from me.

I beg that one day you take accountability for everyone you have hurt. That the scales balance in some way.

Perhaps karma slowly gets you in the meantime.