The Poisoned Ink Well

Thursday, October 31, 2002


STILL, STEAL, STEEL:

Two hours of oral sex versus 15 years or more of nightmares. I got raped a long time ago. It was a stupid situation. My friend and I were set up. She was lucky enough to pass out and they wanted someone awake and alert for their fun.

I was 15 and I can still replay it in my head. Four grown men did this to me. I can still feel the fear and taste the bile in my throat and I can still see the knife. I can’t remember what the men looked like but I could identify that knife to this day. It wasn’t penetration, it was forced oral sex.

When I remember the incident or something brings it to my attention, I ritualistically vow to myself that it will never happen again. This time I’ll kill them. I’ll injure them. They will loose an appendage. I tell myself that I am old and mean and the next one better watch out.

Wait a minute. I’m not violent. I don’t hurt people. Why should I feel like this, this was 20 years ago, and I still think about it. Tears still come to my eyes and I don’t trust men and I don’t trust myself.

They could have killed me.

Years later a bunch of tornadoes swept through the town where this attack took place and people died and I remember thinking and praying, “Dear God, please let these men be in the path of those storms.” and then I stopped myself and felt guilty, guilty at wanting justice so bad that I could watch a weather report and pray, I mean really pray, that one of their houses was one of the ones destroyed and hoping beyond all hope that they died and that they suffered.

The tornadoes were a wake up call for me 15 years later and I still can’t come to terms with something that happened when I was 15 and stupid and young and dumb and I hate myself. I hate myself for putting myself in a situation like that. They were strangers, my friend and I were drinking and we were going to get high with them at the time. I guess we deserved it and we didn’t report it. My friend didn’t wake up till after the assault and they didn’t bother her, I guess they wanted someone who was aware of the fun they were having.

I still feel revulsion, I still feel violated, I still feel responsible, I still feel hurt and sad.

It lasted less than two hours, 20 years ago and I still can’t get the taste out of my mouth, I still can feel the knife at my throat, and it never ends, never.

I got lifetime of feeling like this .

They got nothing.


One more thing, to the elitist bitches that live in Baton Rouge, proceed cautiously to your glass houses, as the rock throwing and mud slinging will begin, shortly. The villagers are gathering outside your stately mansions and another Huey Long ain’t far behind.


{{{{{{{Understand that dignity is an important part of my nursing and theme of my existence. I don't believe in Karma because if there were Karma then I would have received the same competent care that I have provided to others, but then I have to admit since giving birth to my son at Earl K. Long (before I became a nurse) that I have always used their poor standards of providing health care as an example of how not behave towards my patients. After tending numerous births in another state I realized that it was not normal for the nursing staff to curse at you while in labor ( to the staff on duty at Earl K Long in 1987; I am not a fucking bitch (your words) and I will never shut the fuck up). If Baton Rouge produces snipers, taliban members, and serial killers then maybe, just maybe, they need to look at the way they treat women, children, minorities, and members of the working class.}}}}}}}}


One of the most devastating things that has happened to me in recent memory has been the outright bald faced attacks on my reputation which I know to some is practically nonexistent, anyway. I spent 10 years struggling, working, scrubbing toilets, and wiping asses only to be told that I had never worked. I was called names and was sneered at by people claiming to represent me.

Growing up the hard way is still growing up. Years of being the sole support of a child and of attending school and professional conferences and having references and documentation as to my where about didn’t seem to matter.

I spent my time engaged in work, school, raising my son, or engaged in my favorite past time of constantly work shopping and going to readings and concerts, but that didn’t stop them from imagining something quite different. If you think you know someone at 17 then trust me by the time most of us, and I know not all of us, reach 35, we have gone through some growth processes.

If I spent my time well, while nine out of ten didn’t, then don’t fault me for it. If my loves were real, if my maternal instinct was real, if my time I spent nursing and at college was real, and if it makes you angry that a nothing like me, someone who should probably have given up, Oded, or been sent to prison decades ago to prove you right, then I want you to know that:

I did it to piss you off, I did it to prove you wrong, I did it because THE BEST REVENGE IS TO LIVE WELL and I will continue to improve, to further my education, and I will never, ever give up.

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