Day 24- Mine

 One and many, inside and out. This was today's masturbation practice. I was in many places at once. Present in this body but in different ways. I was different ages, moving through different times, with bits of the past pushing in, and my own hands pushing out, pushing through, pushing into something new.

Today was complicated and strange. There was joy and fear. In the beginning it was actually fun. I was listening to music and taking my time. It was a long ride and it was good. I was all sharp and fat delicious sensation. In my cunt, thighs, mouth, throat, spine. I was stretching out, I was dancing. I was rocking, I was breathing. I was panting and moaning and laughing. I was speaking.

I said it out loud, over and over again to myself, and to the long line of shadow people watching at a distance- this is mine. This is mine. 

I didn't stop moving or lose myself when I became aware of all those shadow people, mostly faceless, standing in a line that stretched out and out to the horizon. I was scared but I wouldn't let go of me.

***

It's a strange thing to not know all the names of my abusers. It's a strange thing to know the names of some of them and know that they are relatives.I know their secrets as well as I know my own and sometimes better. My grandfather, foster uncle and aunt, and my mother and father stand in that line. (Don't we hate that women are child molesters too sometimes?) There are also family "friends", a pediatrician whose name I know who is still alive but very, very old now. Then there are the rest, the people I don't know. I see them now at a gray hazy distance. These memories are paper thin and jaggedy. The feeling of dread in the pit of my stomach.The sounds of a cocktail party or worse sounds I won't talk about. Sometimes they covered their faces. Sometimes they covered mine.

It's strange to be fighting people I don't know, can't name. I can smell them. Or taste a residue. Or feel a body memory that takes a bite out of my pleasure.

Somewhere in the middle of the masturbating, self touching, self fucking, can I say self loving? I can. Somewhere in the middle of that my left hand flew up and I flipped them all off. The ones whose names I know, the ones who are just shadow people. I said, in the middle of my grind and rock and roll, in the middle of my cunt grabbing on to everything and swallowing it just because she wanted to, just because it felt so good, I said fuck off. Fuck you. This is mine now. This is mine.

I hate this part of the writing. It may be the first time I've ever spelled it out so clearly. It's not my way. But it's true. This writing is the very kind of writing I avoid at all cost. I like to have my punch lines raw and true but less obvious. It feels awkward and tawdry. I hate for it to sound like a really bad lifetime movie.

But here's the thing. I was too little. From the the beginning till the end, I was way too little. And so this taking back is so very strange. So many layers to it, so many layers to me. One and many. All fighting to take this body back, this desire back, all the way back into me.

Since I was 21 and learned to touch my body as though it were my body (before that it never ocurred to me that I could do this thing, I always believed this body belonged to them so why and how would I touch it?) I have fought to keep masturbation. Most of my partners haven't been comfortable with my need to masturbate. But I have done so anyway. Refused to let go of what I needed like air. I needed to touch myself, I needed that to be mine. The difficulty was that I touched this body, touched me, from a distance. Through the fog. Lost in fantasy. It was a body I hovered around but never was all the way inside.

This month has been precisely terrifying because I am holding on to it from the inside out as best I can, with slippery fingers and a mind that doesn't want to stay with it. Because it is unknown, because it tells me the truth. Because I cannot claim my own body and flesh now without remembering who claimed it yesterday. It is all of a piece.

Today was some really fine self sex, some crazy, angry, gleeful taking back, and powerful naming. This body is mine. This cunt is mine. My good girl. bad girl, my slut, my woman, my boys, my top, my bottom, my mean girls, my wild- it's all  mine. The memories are mine. The old aching pain is mine. The incest is mine. The abuse is mine. I am calling out the shadow people and making my stance. I am saying that's enough now, you don't get anymore. Get the fuck out.

I fight the urge to apologize for these words. Because I am afraid of calling the darkness up. Making it stronger. I am afraid to somehow ruin you by these words. And I can't seem to make them read smooth and pretty. I couldn't figure out a different way to tell the truth about today's masturbation. It's easy when I'm writing fiction- even if it's fictioned truth. I can do it with more eloquence and less detail. I can be more clever and creative. I can use the word she instead of the word me.

I'm grateful for your words, your own touching, your witness. I'm grateful that you read these words even though they are hard, depressing and no where near as hot as I'd like them to be. I wish I had smoother words for you today.

This is just the shit that happened today. Good and bad. All at once. Like it goes. And yes, it's all mine.