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Stories
| A Short Story by Valerie Muzzy |
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I took a walk in the meadow, to my favorite rock by the babbling brook….
It always seemed to calm me, when my life was “out of control” – on one of my “bad days”. While I was sitting there, deep within myself, a little girl came skipping up to me, humming a tune, in her youthful innocence. “What is your name child?” I asked. “eirelaV – erie laV” she laughingly replied, and she picked a dandelion and blew the seeds into my face, watching – as they floated away – in the cool summer breeze. “Well, that’s an odd name”. I replied. But, she only laughed and picked another flower and blew their seeds into the wind. Then she spoke to me in a riddle….“My name is, eirelaV, I saw deredrum” then she turned and skipped away, humming her tune.
So, free and innocent, I thought, But, as she left, it occurred to me, that I had witnessed a “mirrored” image of myself as a child and that I was once innocent.
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| Affirming My Sexuality |
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I celebrate the beauty of my sexual feelings, they are my God given gifts
To have, to enjoy, to share when I want, with whomever I want.
You had no right to force your way, to invade my body, to take the pleasure of enjoying my sexuality.
I hate that which you did to me, I loath the thought of your touch and body on mine.
You raped my soul, my body, my feelings.
My responding was not my response to you but only the response of a healthy body to sexual stimuli.
I will not hate my body for responding in a natural way.
The anger I feel belongs to you.
The bitter tears I wept at the realization of my sexual response were tears of anger and humiliation.
That anger and humiliation are yours to bare, they are not mine, I GIVE THEM BACK TO YOU!
I will not blame myself for my body’s reaction for what you did against my will.
My feelings did not betray me.
My feelings were betrayed by you.
I celebrate my feelings and my sexuality.
- Florence Paine
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| I Remember... |
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I remember your first name, your acne infested skin, but most of all I remember your selfishness. I did not come into your presence to be drugged and raped. In fact, I had no intention of making any contact with you. But -oh- you knew didn’t you? That was your advantage. I remember - your cold sharp toes into mine as you held me down - that’s where the bruises came from. My conscious self remembers flashes, my soul, my spirit, and my body remembers the bits in-between. Sharp cold balls of steel are being set down on me, I lean over the bowl, violently discarding the contents of my stomach. Confused, dizzy, and longing for everything to stop moving around me as if I am in another time zone. I reach a point of sickness that fear of death crosses my mind. The room spins. Almost like a news flash in my brain I think, “he’s going to rape me.” I predicted it. It’s the reoccurring dream where you can’t yell for help while in great danger and you open your mouth and nothing comes out. Paralysis out of nowhere sets in. So, you see, I was raped and knew before the actual act. It would be several hours before paralysis would subside.
- JL
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| Understanding and Wholeness |
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I understand now, why sometimes after making love
And the pleasantness of the sensual feelings lingered
Why I felt that I hated my vagina
Why I felt that I wanted to cut that part of my body and those
Feelings out of me.
To keep separate, those feelings from myself.
It was my body remembering what my mind could not.
Repressed memories of body and mind, rebelling at the violation of my soul.
My flashbacks, those lost pats of my memory have now been reunited and integrated with my feelings of that abuse.
Now, I know why I grieve and the knowing brings to me a sense of coming together again.
Memories and feelings brutally split and torn from one another.
Now, I feel a new and unaccustomed wholeness that outshines the pain. I celebrate my feelings and my sexuality.
-Florence Paine
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