Scrooge

| By Lauren Taglienti |

Photo by Rathnahar R via Pexels

Scrooge

By Lauren Taglienti

I don’t like the holidays, I say,

Someone usually ends up in the hospital;

I hope it’s not me this year.

It had been me, years prior.

Just let it happen, he said.

He, my first boyfriend. 

11:30pm. New Year’s Eve.

My parents’ living room couch. 

I had just turned 13.

No, I said. Please, no. Please, stop.

I begged.

I cried during, and afterwards;

I didn’t know what sexual assault was,

But I knew this was wrong:

Violating, abusive, disrespectful.

But he said he loved me,

So I thought, “Surely,

This is part of love. 

This—this is what it feels like to be loved.” 

Love isn’t easy, they said.

This must be what they meant. 

I cried all night;

No one knew why.

I didn’t tell anyone for months;

I didn’t know I could.

My body cries every year;

It remembers before my brain does.

Don’t be such a Scrooge, people say.

I’ll never say this to another,

For I far too well understand

That I will not wake up New Year’s Day a changed person,

Suddenly forgetting the sins he committed:

I understand the pain of others;

Judgement, be damned.

So call me a Scrooge, if you must;

I’ll be over here,

Attempting to restructure my cognition:

Let new, positive memories outshine the pain,

But you won’t know what I’m feeling,

My signature smile and laugh abounding,

Regardless of the emotion just behind them,

Writhing around my brain:

Grief of innocence being torn from me,

Heaviness at the transference of his shame and insecurity to me,

Anger at injustice at the hands of a selfish man,

Disappointment that this wasn’t the only time,

Fear that it’ll happen again,

Exhaustion and resentment for the onus of healing from something I didn’t do being on

me—

Me:

A passenger,

Surrendering to pain like a scared child learning to cry:

A desire for sedation.