The first time
I did “the right thing”
and reported it
and lost my playground privileges.

The second time
I decided didn’t happen
because I wanted to keep
my virginity.

The third time
I didn’t want
to ruin his future.
And he said he was sorry.
That counts, right?

He said he was sorry
for drugging me
raping me
throwing me around
a hostel bathroom
like a bloodied ragdoll.
Using any hole
he could sink his dick in.

But he really was sorry.
And he’s so young too.
So young and full of promise like me.
And I’m alright.
“You’re alright,
you’re alright,
you’re alright…”
I repeat to myself,
as I walk along,
my heart racing,
my holes aching,
in a hopeless attempt to self-soothe.
You’re alright Caitlin,
just like my mother used to say
when I’d busted my knee.

Besides, I might
never
have
remembered
had I not had to fish out my tampon
the next morning.
It was jammed right to the back
of my vagina and I wasn’t sure
I’d ever get it out.
My vagina was all cut up
and touching the wounds brought back flashes
of being held up fully clothed under a shower
(Did I stop breathing? Did he think he’d killed me?)
of vomiting in a toilet bowl
while being fucked in the ass,
of making a grab for the door
while he casually clicked the lock over
to “engaged”.

but I might
never
have
remembered
if he hadn’t have said sorry.

So maybe I could pretend I didn’t know, right?
Maybe I could skip the part
where I miss my train
and go to a foreign police station
and be fingered by a foreign doctor
and be questioned in a foreign accent
about a boy that has already skipped town
who probably has a bright future
or something along those lines,
and anyway I’m alright.

Plus I didn’t want to tell my Dad.
Oh man, he’d be so sad! And angry!
And he would blame himself.
I still don’t want to tell my Dad.
Dad, please don’t read this poem.

I want you to keep thinking of me as
your beautiful baby girl.
Please? Because I am.
I am still your perfect daughter, Dad.
I’m so sorry I let that happen!
I’ll try to do better next time.

And I don’t want you to beat yourself up
thinking you should’ve protected me.
You are such a beautiful Dad and I love you so much.
I don’t want them to hurt your heart like they did mine.
And I’m alright, really I am!

I put on twenty pounds
and stopped wearing mini-skirts.
There. That should do it.

But it just got worse
as I got more worn down
and I lost all my fight
and spunk.

“Just get it over with”
“He’ll be done soon and you can sleep”
Surrender, surrender, surrender.
Fatter and fatter and fatter.
“You’re alright, you’re alright, you’re alright”
I’d say to myself,
not much more than a eunuch,
holed up with my dying spark
somewhere in the back
of my scarred and sacred vagina.

I’m not alright.
This is not alright.
I am not some sweaty gym sock
to be pumped full of cum
when convenient.

Out of the jungle came my Maxx,
defector of the patriarchy,
and he found me in my cave.
Together we breathed life into that spark
which made a little fire
that burns in me today.

This is why I can write now.

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Thanks for reading! The best way to get around the internet censors and make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list for my website, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. My articles are entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, liking me on Facebook, following my antics on Twitter, checking out mypodcast, throwing some money into my hat on Patreon or Paypal,buying my new book Rogue Nation: Psychonautical Adventures With Caitlin Johnstone, or my previous book Woke: A Field Guide for Utopia Preppers.

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21 responses to “This Is Why I Can Write Now”

  1. Thank you for this, Brave Woman.

  2. That you survived and are now actually thriving is miraculous, as is the addition of Maxx to your soul sharing! I knew from your writing that you had suffered mightily, your very heart and soul scarred, but your determination to take on the wrong doers of the planet has been of great value to those of us who have been in your shoes. For that I bless and thank you, having walked in those shoes I know that our kindred spirits are so glad that you have helped give us some of the strength that you have! You are a remarkable human being!

  3. You are so very Beautiful Caitlin and the world needs what you offer so very much.. Thank you.

  4. There was an old man in a spa
    Who unhooked his girlfriend’s bra
    When he came up for air
    He admire her pair
    And that was his last hurrah

  5. Thank you Caitlin, dear god, thank you – for all you do! I am SO GRATEFUL that your spark was fanned and you’ve become a flaming, raging light for the world!

  6. brought me to tears. thank you for sharing

  7. Is there something one can say? Anything?

    Another casualty of . . . , of . . . whatever we call this.

    Society? No. It is a lack of society. It’s not a culture war. It is . . .

    Social species have rules, and hierarchies. This is failed socialization. This . . . , this . . . doesn’t matter.

    Thank you for surviving, and fighting back. And articulating the resistance. We owe you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank Maxx.

  8. I hope we can build a monument to Caity while she’s still alive to see it. I don’t know what kind of monument it should be , but I’m thinking that something on the scale of the Statue of Liberty or Mount Rushmore would be about right.

    1. She’s not that fat!

  9. Wish you could be in the front row in Washington today to support Ford.

  10. Caitlin, you have such amazing courage to post this.

    I learned not to cry so long ago, yet I have tears in my eyes as I write this.

    I completely understand your not wanting your father to read this poem. We want to protect the ones we love from the horrors we have experienced.

    You are so brave. You are so gifted. You have such spirit. Your desire to make the world a better place overrides your own comfort zone.

    I am so glad you have found someone to love and who loves you back. Take care of yourself. Be well. Thank you with all my heart.

  11. Almost the identical thing(s) happened to me. In my case, though, I did have to go to a doctor to get the tampon out, and the doctor made it a thousad times worse ~ implying “I shouldn’t be having rough sex.” I’d love to write about my experiences, but my best friend ~ my father ~ turns 87 on Friday, and I know he couldn’t take reading it. So it remains inside, as I continue to tell myself that I’m okay.

  12. You’re one of my heroes now, dear. I know it’s only a minor consolation. But my tears are real and so are my heroes. And you’re one of them.

  13. No one, not a single person should ever have to suffer that sort of abuse – or anything remotely close to it. I bet that scum thought he was ‘making love.’ But any fool can see that there was no love there. I do hope your Maxx makes your each and every day better than the one before.

  14. Dear (Team) Caitlin: There is little to add here apart from acknowledging the terrors here and seeing within it what is going on with the Trump endeavour to get his candidate onto the Supreme Court of the US – another who is now no doubt truly sorry for his as yet not properly acknowledged abuse of girls and young women. You have spoken up. That takes courage – which you seem to have in shovels-full quantity. With Maxx! Brava! (I’m finding it difficult to enter my name and other details here in order to send…if it gets through you’ll know I was ultimately successful – of course.) Hurrah! Success!

    1. Jim, “…another who is now no doubt truly sorry for his as yet not properly acknowledged abuse of girls and young women.”

      Where is there any shred of evidence for this claim?

  15. You are more than alright. Your oppressor is not. If his contrition were real, he would be drowned in his own sorrow. Perhaps he may have. Would that matter enough to ease the agony you suffered? Self-gratification at the expense of another underlies a deep disconnect the within the self. His ability to feel remorse is as absent as the joy of tenderness. He was not using you as much as he was being used by the impulses he was powerless to control

  16. He wasn’t really sorry. No one can do that to a person AND be really sorry. He was really traumatized long ago maybe, but even that’s not the same as being really sorry. Love yourself as much as we love your writing.

  17. Thank you Dear Open Hearted Girl ♡

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