simultaneously
It happens more often than I’d like…not that it’s something I should even like, but there was once upon a time I did like it. It happens during sunlight hours, which is odd because of the sexual nature of the scenes. I can be folding laundry and these flashes of disturbing images start polluting my brain uncontrollably. One after another…after another…after another…until I’m so far down the rabbit hole that my memories begin to overlap and I am watching different years all happening in a synchronous skit of my life at twenty-something…right there, plastered on my bedroom wall; like a giant projection screen of my most intimate moments…
Moments that I buried so deep into the back of my subconscious reappearing as if I experienced them yesterday; with such detail and precision that I recall the exact conversations, the shape of his hands, the liquor on his breath, and the way his eyes would squint as he’d lie through his teeth. And when I say ‘his’, it’s not always the same person…fuck, it wasn’t always the same person back then either…
Images rotating on this invisible screen of different facial features morphing into one…every man from my past just flickering on and off my bedroom wall like a deck of cards being shuffled…one after another…after another…after another… until the shuffling stops and the cards disappear and the image I’m left with are these hollow brown eyes, slanty, and a smile that redefines the word to something so unfriendly, rather sinister and perverted. And when this face glares back at me, for once in my life I am at a loss for words. And I hate how he does this to me…when I’m folding laundry…when I’m laying in the sun…when I’m driving… during any moment of silence…any chance at some clarity, he knows that is when he can get me. And I cannot say anything, because once upon a time I did like it.
This energy of disgust crawls up my back and wraps itself around my neck, and I’m standing there in the silence, not breathing, not blinking, overwhelmed in my past that I could’ve swore I annihilated years ago for the sake of my reputation. For years I swore to myself to forget certain things, so I wouldn’t have to face the judgements and criticisms. But no one knows about these moments, except for me, and him. But I can’t even face the opinion and disappointment from my fukin’ self. So I pretend they never existed.
I don’t have answers as to why I did the things I did, other than I didn’t have to explain myself to anyone. These were my secrets, and my secrets only.
And now he is my regret, and my regret only. This past humiliation living simultaneously with my happy present life, but is constantly there to remind me that no moment of silence will ever be a moment of peace.