Boundaries

He pulled my hair and said he liked to pull hair. He was a stranger. I met him that night. When I yelled at him he didn't apologize, he just said he would leave.

I was scared all night. I already knew he knew who I was with and when I was away from them. He had told me so.

I was scared he wouldn't take my no. I was scared of leaving by myself. I was so scared that I was shaking. I was shaking and I fell down the stairs, my body doing that dissociative trick it had always done, as my bones pop out of places and I got bruises worthy of admiration, worthy of the violation. It's like my body says, I won't allow you to be hurt like that without everyone knowing, without everyone really seeing.

I went with a friend but as I gather myself together, my glasses broken and bones back in place, I said I was too scared to walk to a cab by myself. I limped out with the bouncer, refusing to be left for even a moment alone.

And the more I hurt, the more my body hurts itself- like the most ingenious form of unconscious selfharm.