Warning: This work has been rated 18+ for language and mature content.
Oh, yeah? What the fuck do you want me to tell you about? Do you want me to tell you about how confused I was when he pinned me up against the bed? Or about how I hated the way his hands felt in my pants? Ooh, how about the way I almost didn't stop him because I was scared that he was going to overpower me?
I can tell you about how fucking horrified I was when I told my parents; I thought they were going to tell me it was my fault. Or maybe I can tell you how bad it felt when they did nothing about it. I could tell you about how bad my hands would shake when I had to see him over and over and over again. My entire family acted like he didn't do anything wrong.
Maybe I should go into detail about how hard it was to push all those memories out of my mind. Or how bad my head pounded when they started coming back six years later. I could bring up how the only way I kept myself from suicide was to drown in music. Maybe I should tell you about the nights I prayed for my lungs to stop working because I didn't wanna wake up anymore.
There’s the story of how I fell out of religion. I was practically the preacher’s daughter. Church every Sunday morning and night and Wednesday nights. Sure, we were usually a little late, but we were there. Once those memories started coming back, I started questioning my faith. I remember asking my parents, “Why would God let such bad things happen to good people?” All they said was, “That’s how things are.”
How about I tell you about how it felt like there was no one on my side. I reached out to strangers because I couldn’t talk to my parents, and most of those people cheered for him. They said that “People don’t do that to little kids without a reason.” I, unfortunately, had that singed into my brain before I found out that it isn’t true. Sometimes, when I lie awake at night, that thought comes back to me, and I have to remind myself that it’s a lie. Now, when I meet people, I try to refrain from telling them anything about it unless I think I can trust them. That doesn’t happen much anymore.
There's also the effect it has on my relationships. There are times where I need someone to hold me until I fall asleep, crying in their arms. I need someone to show me that my pleas aren't useless. Then there are times where I can't be touched because he broke me. He told me my cries for him to stop would be a shout to the void. He said no one would care, and he was right. I'm scared it's going to happen again.
Will you be satisfied if I tell you about the nights where my chest felt heavy? Nights like those, I didn't sleep until I almost collapsed because I was hoping my lungs would. There were so many of those nights.
What if I told you about all the flashbacks, the urges to punish myself for what happened, his voice? They all come to my head and make sure I know that everything is the same as it was then: no one cares.
You should know that I, nor anyone else in my position, will ever truly recover from something like this. It's always something that we're going to have to live with. We may have those five or ten minutes where we forget about it, but nothing will ever be like it should've been.
I should've been happy, not in therapy.
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Canary word: Present
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125,029 Literary Works • 672,781 Reviews
Hey there! I've not seen many pieces of writing in this kind of form before so I thought I'd take a look.
I think a colon would work better between these two sentences.Specifics
1. I'm not sure about starting with 'oh yeah' because it gives the reader no context. A similar start which would help ease us in more might be 'So you want me to talk about it?'
2. There's a kind of list feel to this piece and I like that but I think some of the items on the list could be expanded on more or explored further, like you mention drowning in music - what's that like? I don't know much about music myself so I'm not sure if you mean drowning by listening to lots of music or if it's more about the depth of a certain piece - low sounds or loud sounds? I think that might be a nice place to put some imagery in and help the reader understand that feeling or that act.
3.
4. This is quite a passive line, maybe you could make it a little punchier. Like 'Relationships are harder too' or 'Then there's my crumbling attempts at relationships'.
5. Great end statement - lots of very strong sentiments there.
Overall
I think it would be good if you expanded on some of the points in the middle and maybe if you gave a few more specific examples of how people responded to the event - I'm thinking particularly about friends because it seems to cover the family and what strangers would say but what about people who were friends for years before this happened? Maybe just one specific example in there to really give us an idea of the impact.
That's all I have on this for now but if you've got any questions about what I felt about anything in particular, please feel free to ask!
All the best,
Heather
Just so you know, I don't like things I necessarily thought were good. I've liked things that I could definitely dissect and criticize as a work, so to me the point of liking isn't how good the work is, rather how much it deserves to be seen. I think this deserves to be seen. I think it could've been better--I liked the voice of the narrator, it was a lot more personal than most and leads me to believe that this actually happened to you (in which case, I truly am sorry the world is as horrendous as it is. If you don't find a kind and helpful community here or on any other online platform, I hope you do somewhere else, eventually--with that said, I will still judge this as an ordinary work, so tread carefully).
However, I couldn't fully immerse myself into it because the voice of bitterness didn't seem bitter enough. This letter is not aimed at the therapist; it is aimed at the culture that perpetuates the habit of ignoring child molestation, or victim blaming, or any sex-related violence. When the therapist asks "Tell me about it," the therapist knows the speaker will not be talking to the therapist. The speaker will be talking to the universe, and if you believe in a divine presence, to God. What I'm saying is, the speaker is pissed off, but the speaker doesn't feel like they're pissed off enough. The use of occasional cursing doesn't have the context or wit to fuel its power (AKA the "What the fuck do you want me to tell you about?" part), how the speaker talks about the incident is just a little too conventional (Anyone can say, "Do you want me to tell you about how confused I was when he pinned me up against the bed?" Only a certain person can say, "Do you want me to tell you the brand of condoms he used?" That last part brings a certain imagery, forces the reader to imagine the situation without directly describing the situation. Of course, I don't know what you went through in detail, so I'm only speaking as a writer, not a victim. You know what happened, and I think you can describe it much better than I can), and everything seemed...polished, somehow. Passionate, but not raw enough to put forward an emotion.
So before I get into the nitty-gritty, again--I don't mean to offend. I hope that my criticism is constructive, not destructive, and nudges you to describe your experiences further in order to reinforce the gravity of the situation. Because let's not forget, we need works like this. We need works that call victim blamers out on their shit. We need works that urge people to treat child molesters and rapists like they deserve. And more importantly, we need works victims can relate to. We need to hear their voices, because often those voices are lost and we forget the effects this sort of thing can have on someone's mental frame. I am a true believer in art as catharsis and voice, and I do think it has a good effect on people who write. I hope that by criticizing said art, I may build upon it and allow the writer to grow in skill and translate their experiences better so that more people can understand.
So without further ado, the highlights.
The Beginning:
-For the most part, I liked the beginning. It connected to the title very well without directly saying it, like a conversation between the text and the title. If I wrote this, I personally would've saved the cursing to the emotional peaks of the work--when you start by cursing in the beginning, you are promising a gritty and angry and bitter tone for the rest of the work, a tone that isn't afraid to drop even worse words later on. That was something I didn't quite catch onto in this work.
I think you might've meant 'was' there. Also, this is a personal call, but I'd suggest removing 'out of my mind'. The more words you use, the less powerful the statement becomes (usually).
Middle:
-I will say, I think this line is one of the lines that uses the f-word in a more justified way:
Maybe just a little too soon as well, but overall I can feel the sentiment behind it. I know why the main character is using it. I would suggest replacing 'scared' with another word, a much stronger adjective would do since you've already used the word 'scared' (it's sort of an unspoken rule that there's only a certain number of times you can use a specific word before it loses its meaning), but overall there is context to it. Would I have used it in this case? Artistically speaking, maybe not. There are better uses, and it takes a lot of skill to pull it off with the intended passion without coming off amateurish.
-There's a part in the middle where you suddenly jump into the topic of religion. Personally, I think this was very out of place, it didn't connect very much into the rest of the text. The only connection it has can be connected to every other horrible thing in the universe, which doesn't quite cut it, I think. You may be able to rephrase it and spread the symbolism out a bit, to make the feeling more fitting.
I feel like this phrase was very awkward. Firstly, it suggests that someone actually did carve 'Used Goods' into their forehead, which isn't exactly the case when you reread it. Secondly, 'Used Goods' is usually used in reference to rape victims, most probably when their love interest tells them "I can't marry you because you've had 'sex'" which is one of the bullshit things that makes people glare at religion (we're not going to talk about how there's a verse in the Bible that is often argued [I italicized that because I know someone will eventually accuse me of saying wrong things so I'm just putting that out] as being, in short, a command that a rapist must marry their victim [Deuteronomy 22:28]). That sort of description isn't really described, so I can't help but feel like there was a better way to describe that sentiment.
I think you might've meant 'their' in there. Otherwise, you're suggesting the main character wants to cry in...the therapists' arms?
Ending:
No criticism. Just wanted to say that this was the line that made me like the work.
Signing out,
--EM.
I see your points. And I thank you for your time. I will make all of the necessary edits. I think I'm going to rewrite this in much more detail.
I love the passion you have in your writing. I could feel your pain and understand what you went through. I might not fully understand how you felt but I have similarities that compare. I would suggest to you write more let your feelings and emotions flow onto the page.
Thank you so much for your compassion and time.