Sanctity of Love and Lust

CONTENT WARNING: Violence, Suicide, and Sexual Assault

It’s so easy.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

The minute puberty stained my clothes, my life set in motion. Promised to a man before I turned twelve and when he’s three times your age, he’s already got the plan laid out.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

Six kids with good blood, all born two years after the other, boy first, boy second, and then four girls. Keep his good blood breeding with more of his good friends, awarding them each a daughter before the ceremony is even complete and allow our sons to carry his legacy.

Thud. Thump. Thud. Thump.

Don’t fight, don’t eat, smile, serve, repeat. Lay there, don’t interrupt until he’s finished, make the bed, bare the children, raise them, forget yourself.

Thud. Thud. Thud.

The sun rusts the sky faster than I anticipate, but my body can’t maintain the same force without the fresh shot of adrenaline numbing the ache radiating from where the toes of my father’s boot had dug into my lungs. The shock pulled the air from my body but the cut of my mother palm sent it back in. It didn’t stop when I broke, it didn’t stop when their own knuckles bled, I don’t know how it stopped.

Stumbling, I break through the spotted entrance of the forest with trees that touch the sky. I can’t stop. They’re only a dozen or so minutes behind me.

All because of me. Because of her.

The bitter autumn wind whips at the slick streaks of hair blood still fresh on my round cheeks, bringing a new sense of my body, sense of the broken parts of my body. I can’t stop though, even when the harsh suck of air rakes my throat.

The trees around seem to part for me as I wind further and further into the unfamiliar, stumbling through the underbrush, whipping against my bare legs.

We were always going to follow the path, we were going to marry our husbands, bear their children, and let the fire of our love burn us alive until we were sterile. We would have each other, consume all we could, until we had to stop. And we would stop.

But they found us before we could prove that we could give the other up.

I fall against ragged bark, grooves as thick as my entire hand running up the tree and disappearing into the darkness before I could even make out the leaves. Thundering pulses radiate from my chest and head as I gulp for air. It doesn’t come quick enough. I choke on the last breath already trying to force another one out.

I can’t stop. They call my name with poison dripping from their tongue that is carried with wind. How are they going to tell my future husband the only home I’m providing is to the maggot wriggling underneath my skin.

I take a step and then another. My ankle screams as I step into sage brush, skittering claws bound out from around me.

They’re demanding now, not just calling. And it drive’s my body in the maze of growing trees. I can’t stop. The residents here call out to each other, announcing the arrival of a wounded animal and I welcome their approach. If my arm weren’t dislocated, I’d be up a tree or crawling forward but it hangs mockingly as I follow the deer trail deeper and deeper.

My mother’s voice drive’s a clumsy foot forward but there’s no ground beneath it and I plummet. With only one arm I fall forward. It’s less than a second before my head slams against the wet earth that's deceivingly hard. The world flickers in and out of focus. The steady thunder of my heart is the only thing that anchors me to reality, even the warm trickle of blood melting down the sharp curved cheekbone fades and ebbs.

It’s not the heart beat that gets me to my feet, stumbling again, faster and faster.

“Lord forgive my daughter.”

Words wept into the night surrounds my wrists in shackles. In the crisp air, it echoes through my memory.

“She is consumed by sin. She doesn’t know what she’s promising herself too. The devil is wrapped in that girl's skin, it darkens it with the wickedness of her ancestors.”

The darkness of my skin. The dark pigment is how I disappeared in the forest, screened by shadows.

“We can fix this,” the voice that guides my heart --welcomed me to the world-- bounces from tree to tree. The continuation of a cycle, once a daughter given to a man in order for financial gain. One domino in the set, falling, and taking me down with her,

I slide to a stop, whirling behind a tree. The tender skin of my breast presses into a tree as if I could will myself into it, safe.

“Darling, you’re misguided. It's the devil acting on this, not you. You’re our beautiful girl.”

I can’t stop the whimper that escapes my lips. Mom.

They call out again, but they’re farther away. In the rapids of my tears, I nearly call out, but the part of me that escaped into this forest keeps me quiet.

I don’t know how to fix this.

The adrenaline that took me this far, ebbs with every moment I stay still but the bruises forming up and down my body punish breath.

A scream erupts in the silence of the forest, sending animals scattering past me.

Dread seems to be the opposite of adrenaline.

It freezes my cut up feet to the ground and I can’t will my arms to extend, I can’t will my eyes close as the scream is cut off by a slap. And then moan.

And I. know. That. Moan.

No.

Another stinging slap breaks me free from my hold. I dart forward, this time with a different kind of panic. The sound of skin against skin, twists my nerves in circles, winding them tighter and tighter as cries join the torturous symphony.

“There is no pretending your soul is salvageable.”

“You’ve poisoned the sanctity of love and marriage.”

“You’ve tarnished our family. If we don’t take care of you now, the Lord will do worse.”

The voices get further and further away. As well as her cries. I can’t fix this. I can’t fix me. I can’t save her. Like a wild animal, I run from her, terrified by her screams as she preoccupies the predators.

It's not until I collapse that I stop running. My shoulders shake as I hold my chest up from the ground, letting my aching legs fall uselessly below me. A stream of warmth runs down my face, contrasting against the cold air rushing around me. It tickles my skin as it drops to my collar bone, rolling down into my cleavage and pooling. The grass under my palm is soft against the burns on my fingers and I relish the relief.

I can’t find my breath, choking against the sobs in my chest as I watch my future dissolve. There would be no wedding, no children, no family, no mother, no father, no fixing me. Nothing. Not even her.

Her cries follow me, ringing in my ears. And I left her. I left everything. How is it that my heart is beating, when the pressure in my chest is cutting off every breath?

Pressing my clenched fist to my chest, I finally scream. Once more, the animals scatter but this time, they’re running from me. And the pain in my chest constricts as I let out another wet scream, letting it fill the winter autumn air around me until it dies out. And then again, I scream. I scream and I scream. Pain runs free from my body as I let every dream tear out of me. I let the scream free that I held back the first night he came into my room and locked the door. The same scream that I should have released in my white nightgown while my parents slept in the room next to mine. The one I bit down as he explored his future wife. The one I kept to myself when my parents asked how I slept.

Eventually the screams turn into sobs I have been saving for myself. But faster than I expect, those sobs turn silent and the tears roll down in a loving caress of the curves of my face. And when they do, I see the fix.

Illuminated by the crescent moon, tree tops glow, leaves tipped white with frost. From here, it almost seemed like I could jump onto their cushiony round tops, like a pillow. I don’t realize I’m walking towards them until I find myself stopped at the edge of a broken rock.

And I found it.

I found the fix.

Closing my eyes, I take a step.