Hope fights for her life

First you were the artist whose melancholic music transported me. Then you were my only human lifeline through an endless sea of strangers, automatons who picked up my limbs, manouvered me, prodded me, looked at me, put things inside me, tutted at me, berated me, argued with me… a sea that came and went…. each strangers touch taking more of my humanity away from me and never bringing it back.

I looked into each set of eyes looking for someone who understood anything about how it felt to be me. Someone who could do something to get me away from this horror that was my own body.

My work of art. My life’s work. What was left of it?

Someone who could see the hours I spent alone, working in pain, trying to improve it, modeling it after an unobtainable figment of beauty that I could never reach. Someone who could see the loneliness of giving up everything in search of a place where I would be accepted and could express my joy in moving, but understand my pain when I found only emptiness, exploitation, incomprehension.

Someone who could see how long I had tried to create meaningful work, to honour the people I loved, to tell true stories. Someone who could see the poverty I had endured. Who could admire how I held on and held on and held on and kept trying.

I looked into each set of eyes, wishing I could be seen.

Wishing they could see how scared I was every time a man came near me. Wishing they could see how bitterly I lost every friendship when he tried to force himself on me. How mournfully I cried each time I saw a little spark of friendship and tried to shelter it like a candle flame, then saw it snuffed out and covered in black choking smoke… all for fear of a “relationship”…. when that wasn’t even what I wanted from them….

What does it mean… “relationship”
Some of them it meant, they owned me and smothered me with misery. Some of them it meant, they melted away from me out of reach, smelling leprosy…. With none of them did I actually want a “relationship” the way I thought of it…. only they feared what might happen…. I wonder what they feared… it must have been very terrible… or I am just boring and unworthy and undeserving of attention, my attachment an evil thing like a barnacle at the bottom of a boat to be scraped off and thrown back into the sea…..

The sea of strangers….

More strangers to touch and poke and prod and grope and smother and choke but then leave… stealing another piece of me as they went…

More stories to learn but never know the ending… more confusion and puzzled sadness and exhaustion from having the same conversation to “get to know you” for the thousandth time….

How many people had touched me and moved on, until there was so little left that was mine any more

How many people had looked at me and judged, and said only in their absence how little they found to approve of

For a moment you might have been a kindred spirit…. an artist in a mechanical world….. a foreigner making their way, searching for a new home….

Perhaps you might have understood….

How hard it is to live in a foreign city without friends. How hard it is to find work when you are no-one, with nothing.
How grateful you were to the people who had helped you survive… and how you keened for the ones who had left, when you loved them

How much you wanted to feel anything at all that was good… in a sea of numbness and incomprehensible digital wars and loneliness that drowns and beats and chokes and smothers

How much you needed help when you were weakened and could not survive independently as you always had… perhaps you could see how it must feel when what makes you strong is your weakness, when you have tried to hard and stretched yourself until you literally snapped….

Now maybe you could see what it felt like to be in the sea….

In a sea of pain… of nothing left of dignity…. of nothing left of being able to take care of oneself….

Can you see the sea?

In a sea of blind terror that all was lost…. will I ever walk again? Will I ever feel sexual pleasure again? Will I ever dance? Will I ever work? Will I ever bear children?

I knew I would lose all this someday but I didn’t think it would come so soon… Is now the time of my death? Has my body that I crafted and worked and approached mastery of all lost…. replaced by this wreck? Legs that could not bear my weight, let alone float with an elegant poise that wrapped the laws of physics around my muscles and held time for just a moment
Skin that could not feel
Muscles that could not move
Pain pain pain pain pain pain pain pain pain pain pain pain pain pain pain pain pain pain pain pain pain pain pain pain pain pain pain pain WHEN WILL IT END CRUSH MY SKULL AND GET IT OUT I CAN’T TAKE IT I CAN’T I CAN’T I CAN’T I CAN’T I CAN’T I CAN’T I CAN’T I CAN’T I CAN’T I Caaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
Tears
Fist beating head
Get it out get it out get it out
Is this forever
Am I broken forever
Why didn’t I argue when they told me to “carry on your normal activities”
Why did I believe them when they brushed me off and acted like it was nothing
Why didn’t I know that it was not ok to be in pain
Why why why how can I get OUT

I saw a little glint in your eye, and imagined that you might see me too. But I had doubts… I don’t want to reveal too much in case I am stabbed in the heart and robbed of my gold.

You saw. You came at me with your knife. But you told me to trust you.

I said, I will trust you if you hug me.

But you wouldn’t hug me.

I needed you to hug me. It was the only thing I asked for in return for giving you something Priceless.

I needed you to hug me.
Or stop taking from my trust and belief in you, something sordid and senseless and numb and dead, and exploitative and cruel and dehumanising and degrading.

You are not here to see how I respond to you. You don’t have to feel how your actions really affect me. You don’t have to know the real me. Only the fake one you imagined in your mind.

I fought so hard but it was useless.

I KNEW what I needed but I couldn’t get it. It doesn’t matter how much I humiliate and degrade myself and BEG and scream for human kindness.

What is it to be in so much pain and to imagine so much pleasure and relief and comfort…. a nirvana, if only you could reach it… an oasis from the suffering….

What is it to see the oasis ahead of you when you are dying in the desert… you imagine the beautiful fruits, the soothing bath, the soft hands melting your pain….

What is it to see the oasis and crawl towards it, only eating more mouthfuls of sand everytime you cry out for relief from your pain, for water to quench your thirst and food for your hunger…

What is it to see the feast waiting for you but then reach out to touch it and it vanishes…

And again

And again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again

Can you still believe in oases after so many mirages have disappeared into smoke? Surely you know by now… there is no Hope

There is nothing for me.
No. There is nothing.
No gentle touch.
No chance to show I can care as much as be cared for.
No eyes looking into mine, telling me that I see and am seen.
No skin to my skin.
No warmth.
No softness
No cuteness
No sweet little eyelashes fluttering and lips gently kissing
No friendly words.
No funny jokes.
No tickles or giggles.
No touch. No touch. No touch.

No FEELING.

Feelings are evil. Feelings are to be abandoned and rejected. Feeling good is prohibited. You will have only pain, and loneliness, and wishing you were anywhere else than inside this evil hell torture chamber of a body.

This body does not deserve to be touched.

This body is only useful in the service of performing for the pleasure of others to look at from afar, who imagine things that are not real, and never will be.
This body is not allowed to feel relief. This body is not allowed to feel tenderness. This body is not allowed to need help. This body is not allowed to be vulnerable, or scared, or express the pain that she feels.

This body is not to be touched. Those feelings she might have must be disgusting. The best part of her is repulsive and evil. Stay away. It’s poison. It will choke you.

This body is not to be soothed. Only positive ideas are allowed. Needing soothing is too demanding. Needing anything is too demanding. Perform for me. Or go away.

This body is not to be cared for. If you want something, you have to crawl through the rubble by yourself. Noone will carry you.

Now you are in everything. You make me fear everything. At first I believed in how much I liked you so much that I questioned my hestitancy. Trust me, you said. I thought…. well… there was a little moment when I thought maybe things might work out. Ok, I’ll make an exception for you. But I need a hug. Every time I do something I think is wrong, as a favour to you, I need a hug.

I need a hug anyway.
I always need a hug. I want a hug every day. My life is wasted. Every day is wasted when I do not have a hug.

Ok I will lower my standards more. Just … One…. Hug…..

Ok. Not even a hug.

Just a conversation. Talk to me. Have a cup of tea. Look at my eyes and see my mind not my genitals.

One call. One straight conversation where you don’t ask me to perform for you. One time when I get you to communicate to me like I am human and we can understand each other.

Please
Please

Please

Please
Please

Please

Please
Please
Please

Hugs are my wealth, that I share with those I care for.

My love is the best part of me.

What is so disgusting to those who see it that I cannot comprehend how to exist. I don’t even feel it. I haven’t felt it for years. I don’t know if I even like you. How arrogant that you declare me in love with you before I ever get a chance to get to know you.

You are just another stranger. How can I say I love you after just a few hours? I don’t feel really love until years have passed.
How do I even know what I feel when you declare it for me and furthermore declare that whatever it is, it is ugly and evil and you want no part of it?

Please look at me. Please just LOOK at my FACE and SEE the truth. Can’t you see that you are hurting me?
If you do not CARE about me then your sexual advances are predatory. I tried to tell you but you pushed down my objections. You overpowered me with guilt and manipulation. I CARE about you and don’t want to hurt you and you use it against me.

Please stop and show that you know I am human.

Please

I am so stupid and desperate. Surely you do not care, you will never care. Surely there is no hope.

But Hope fights. Please! I know inside you there is some humanity. PLEASE!
Please SEE me.

Please look into my eyes and understand what I am telling you. Please stop hurting me. Please look at me like a real person, not a digital fantasy figment. Please let yourself near my real body so I know I am human and I have more worth than as a wank bank inhabitant. Let me have some other purpose and usefulness. Let me have some other aspect to my personality. Let my dancing be art, not sexual gymnastics. Don’t you know that you can really hurt me in those positions? You of all people… this is your PROFESSION. ITS YOUR JOB TO KNOW WHEN YOU ARE HURTING ME.

Let me have my humanity back, please.

Please look at me.

Please talk to me.

PLEASE TALK TO ME ABOUT SOMETHING OTHER THAN YOUR COCK

Please hug me.

Please

Please
Please
Please

Please

Please
Please

Please

I know I am worthless. I am utterly ashamed and broken for asking. I cannot ask any more. I have to give up.

I beat myself with harsh fists. I have to give up. I am not human, I am broken and alone. I have to give up. I beat my head to make the memories of imaginary pleasure that I long so much to make real make them die die die they are not here they are not real they are useless and keeping me trapped in a cycle of pain and wishing I wasn’t in this awful prison of a real body but I AM in this body and this body is ALONE and I have to accept that I will never get what I need.

But Hope fights.

No it cannot be. It cannot be so.
Please don’t let it be so.

Please

Please
Please

Please

Please
Please

Please

Hope fades.

I know it’s too late.

I ask and ask and ask, but everyone looks at me with pity and cannot help.

Please

Please
My voice is weaker.

There is nothing left.

I cannot wish for any relief or any comfort
I cannot wish for any pleasure
I cannot heal
I cannot recover
I am only scars, and a broken frame
I cannot feel where my leg is gone
I cannot feel my butt
When i sit or stand, a strange feeling spreads out around my anus, numbing my skin
I feel as though my butt is not there, and my spine is being crushed into a smothering abyss
My leg is missing
My toes are missing
My feet go cold and I cannot know they are there any more
I fear to bend
I fear to stretch
I fear to walk
I will never run again

The knowledge that it is hopeless is at war with my desperate hope
Sickening in it’s prostration… humiliated and broken
Hope begs for another chance
Hope begs for her life

Everything good is pain
Everything that was a dream or an ambition is gone
Everything that was a joy or a relaxation or a winsome jostle of good humour

All gone

I can hope only for numbness

I keep trying to fix it and to heal and to find someone who can help, and everyone can do nothing, or refuses to do what they could have done

Because I might feel something so dangerous as love, and such a gruesome hideous concept must be crushed, torn apart, spat out into freezing space to turn to ice and rubble and dust

I must be abandoned because I might love
I must be rejected because I might feel something
I must be left behind, because I am no longer useful