I Do Not Love the Sunrise, but I Fear What Will Happen in the Night

I will stay up past dawn studying every inch of your body, like there will be a test on Monday morning covering everything - the bumps, bruises, scrapes, scars, freckles, every ridge, the feel, the taste. Cramming for the exam, face first in your flesh, fearing I might fail.

I fear forgetting. I forget names and faces, past moments. I offend, but am indifferent. Still, I have caught a glimpse of what I am capable of. Not with you. I refuse.

I love like a Ryan Adams song. I love like I live, never knowing when it will go away but aware it will.

I love like a boxer. I am doing my best “butterfly,” but always prepared to sting – always an arm’s length from the edge of the ring, preparing to rope-a-dope.

I will stay up past dawn, tasting your body. I’ll tell you how I’m prepping for the midterm, but always with one eye on the door. Half of me believes that if I blink, I’ll see your back while you walk through that threshold. This isn’t a study session. This is the final. You’ll leave on winter break and, when you come back, you’ll have a new schedule.

I love like an endangered species, nearly hunted out of existence. I’ll limp with an arrow in my flesh, a trail of blood trickling out. I know they’ll use my own blood against me. I know they’ll track me. But all I have is now. All I can think to do is leave the scene. All I know is barely surviving for a few more hours.

I will stay up past dawn practicing my straight face, strengthening my tear ducts, picking my brave face out of a catalog, readying myself to save face. I will keep my head up. I will be cold. I will not be taken by surprise. I will agree – this has run its course.

I love like someone who doesn’t know how. I love my perception of you. I fear who you truly are and who you want to be. We are two impossible beasts with lovely images superimposed on top of us. I do not love the sunrise, but I fear what will happen in the night so I will stay up past dawn.

“I Do Not Love the Sunrise, but I Fear What Will Happen in the Night” was originally a part of the unpublished You Deserve Each Other zine. The author regrets the reference to Ryan Adams.

The Day Your Assailant Dies

On the day your assailant dies, you will not find out. You will not find out for two more weeks. You will receive the call before you look him up. You will be in your third week of the new school year and wonder if this is a bad omen. You will shrug off superstition and rationalize that there is nothing special about three weeks into the school year, it was inevitable he’d die eventually – if not now, then the first week of winter break or the day after a really great date or your birthday or another potentially significant day. He would die; you would struggle to not let him ruin something which you would put extra significance upon because of the timing of his death coinciding with the shared day. This is simply how things go.

On the day your molester dies, you will finally be old enough to start feeling the full impacts of his actions, his lack of control. You will start to connect the dots and they’ll trace back to his desperate, flailing grasp for power over anyone. He brought you into this without asking and left, once again, selfishly and without warning. You will be angry that he is not here to see the damage he’s done, to look it in the eye. You will feel cheated that you never got to tell him that you did not fall prey, that you are bigger, better, stronger, and braver than he could have ever dreamed of being.

On the day the perpetrator’s years catch up with him, he will be alone. His obituary will be reluctantly written and even more reluctantly paid for by an estranged sister who only bothers because of her need for tradition and her hope that, by doing her part to help history remain recorded, life will somehow become just a slightest bit less chaotic. You will feel sorry for her, but mostly you will hate her. You will spend hours wondering what kind of monster memorializes a monster. A greater monster? A lesser, more pathetic monster?

On the day your abuser finally dies, it will be hard to explain to anyone. He’s dead. You should feel elated. You should feel free. He can’t hurt you now. But that’s not how this works just like this isn’t the day they’ll finally understand any of this. He took something and he could never return it, but, with the finality of his passing, it is impossible to pretend any longer – there’s no going back.

On that day, you will not feel free. You will not feel relieved. You will feel exactly the same way you have felt every single day since he entered your life and never left.

“The Day Your Assailant Dies” was originally a part of the unpublished You Deserve Each Other zine.