Sleep Without Sleeping

I never did tell anyone about the times he touched me when I was six.
It’s probably because I didn’t say stop.

I didn’t know I should.

I didn’t know I could.
After all he was family.
​
The painful urination eventually stopped, and I came to expect him--
 finger,

penis,
and tongue.
I learned how to sleep without sleeping, always aware of every movement around me.

That sound is my baby brother leaving his room to go to the bathroom. And that sound is my mom,

going downstairs now, no doubt for a Pepsi and some pretzels.

She always wanted a Pepsi and some pretzels.
And that sound is him,

using the connecting door to enter my room once he thinks everyone is asleep.
But I learned to sleep without sleeping,

to always be aware of every movement around me. And I know he’s coming.

Even before he enters the room, I can hear him.
 Even before he is close to me,

I can smell him.
Even before he touches me, I can taste his breath.

He stopped once I was ten,

and I didn’t see him after that for almost ten years.

I no longer had to pretend to sleep,

but I had learned to sleep without sleeping,

to always be aware of every movement around me.


Yet I was completely oblivious to what was happening in me.
Because of what he did to me,

in me, grew shame, anger, and disgust.

And those deadly seeds, once planted,

would take years to pluck up.

Always trying to fill that void,

I went looking for love in all the wrong places. I was stuck. 

I was pregnant at thirteen,

yet no one ever checked to see if anything had ever happened to me. They just assumed it was me.
“Fast” was what my mom called it, what she called me.
 Why would she assume it was me? I hated her for that.
I thought for a while that she hated me too. So I learned how to be with her--
 I mean, live with her while being apart— connected by DNA but disconnected at heart.
It took years for me to like her,

to not hold what he did to me against her.

Then at fifteen I had an epiphany.

In order to be free,

I could no longer let my mother’s disappointment have power over me.

When I saw him again,

it was at my grandmother’s funeral.

I was nineteen by then.

Someone there told me he lived in a shelter when he was a kid and was probably abused.

It’s no excuse for what he did,

but holding on to it the way I did was choking the life out of me.
And again I had an epiphany.

In order to be free,

I had to take back my cousin’s power over me. And I did.

But the hardest work was learning to like me, not hold what he did to me against me,

not let what he did to me define me.
I didn’t realize it until now,

but I hadn’t dealt with me.

I had pardoned everyone else but me.
Damn!


I never even allowed myself to cry, to really feel the hurt, anger, or pain.
I left that me in Philly with all her bitterness and rage.

Until one day the me I buried was resurrected from her grave and forced me back to me to deal with all the anger and shame.

Then one night in August,

I sat with my tears, anger, and hurt. I gathered my strength
 and took a deep breath.
I told that six-year-old,“It wasn’t your fault.”

I told that thirteen-year-old,“You shouldn’t have had to go to the clinic alone.”

I told that twenty-year-old,“You are special just the way you are.”

I told that twenty-seven-year old,“You don’t have to hide who you are. You just have to be the best you.”

I told that thirty-year-old, “You’ve come a long way but still have work to do.”

I told that thirty-five-year-old, “It is okay to smile and cry because it doesn’t say you’re weak.”

I told that thirty-six-year-old,“Get yourself some sleep.”

Because I had l​earned to sleep without sleeping,

to always be aware of every movement around me.

And at thirty-six,

it was becoming tiring.

So for the first time in a long while I slept.

And it wasn’t the sleep without sleeping I had become accustomed to doing for thirty years.

I really slept

without waiting for the connecting door to open.

I slept

without hearing or smelling him or tasting his breath.

I slept

without pretending not to notice the unwanted finger, penis, or tongue. I slept
 for the first time in a long time.


I was finally able to sleep, 
Because At thirty-six I had another epiphany.
​In order to really be free,
 I couldn’t hold my past against me. 


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