my heart || ✓

| stay with me

The image that I loathe with every part of me — of me sitting there, unmoving beneath a taken woman, and not stopping her. Reaching for me. Not stopping her. Demanding more, sobbing. Not stopping her. Begging for me. Getting to me. Not stopping her. "Taylor, please." Not stopping her. "I love you." Not stopping her.

Walking down the aisle in a stunning dress, pressing her lips against ones that she had just seen on those of another woman and then promptly done the same to me in an episode of sadness and rage and confusion and revenge. Not love.

And me, as cowardly and useless as I have never failed to be:

Not stopping her.

I need to forget. I need to let go of her. I need to stop everything.

And so, as the last contents of the bottle fill my throat and emptiness fills my mind to match my heart and a slender pair of arms wraps around my waist, I do.

-

In the cold bathroom smelling of alcohol and vomit, I stand alone, staring at the razor in my shaking hand. Loud music blasts from outside the door behind me, reminding me that I am only alone for as long as it takes for someone to find me here, staring at myself with pure hatred in the mirror.

And what would they do, Taylor? Stop you?

Of course not.

I blink my stinging eyes again, but this time, there is nothing to blink away. People say showers are the best way to sober up; they should try having the drunkenness knocked out of them by reality and pain and an equally inebriated girl who can't keep her hands to herself. I stare at my pathetic reflection in the mirror, hating it steadily as unwanted images flash through my mind.

My sore eyes stare into themselves, and a girl's voice: "you have the most beautiful eyes." I wince at the memory, wanting to rip the traumatized parts of me out of my skull.

My gaze moves down to my nose, and the suffocating memory of a delicate finger brushes against it. "Button nose," the voice had said. But that is her name for me. Not yours. I never want you to look at my nose again. I would rather cut it off.

Moving down to my cheeks, I see an imprint of red lipstick that is not there, and I wipe it away with a rough hand, wanting instead to rip the flesh off of it at the imaginary sight of the appalling image branded onto my unwilling body.

My mouth, and there are two now — locked together, but only one is responsive. I want to scream, I want to be sick, but that would require using my disgusting, unmoving mouth.

My neck, and the responsive lips are pressed here now. Mine continue to mutter at her, saying the word that should stop her, that should wake her from her drunken, lust-filled daze. It does not. "No," I say. "No." But she does not listen.

My rough hands push her away, and it should be enough (why isn't it enough?), but I still feel hers all over my drunk body. Her hands — on my skin and in my jeans and under my shirt and in my hair. And I feel them wrap themselves in the innocent curls decorating my head, hearing a soft whisper in my ear: "I love your hair." I close my eyes. It is hers to roam, to feel, to twist and play with. Not yours.

And then, her hands on the unholiest parts of my body as I shiver; her lips pressed to my closed, wet eyes; her legs wrapping around my waist as we nearly fall off of the barstool. "No." I mumble through silent tears. But it is not enough.

And in this moment, it is all too much. And I remember it all too well, and I just want to forget (I came here to forget), but I cannot rid these images from my mind. And I want to rip the dirty flesh off of my body, rip the skin off of my skeleton, and I want to go crawling to her and tell her that I am sorry, that I wanted to be hers and nobody else's, not some stranger's from a bar, and that I didn't want it, I swear.