“You know there’s many different ways that you can kill the one you love. The slowest way is never loving them enough.” -Taylor Swift, High Infidelity
My Interpretation: Not all harm looks like rage. Sometimes it is the slow, quiet kind – the kind that comes from being ignored, minimized, or used while someone claims to love you. The kind that lingers in your body long after it has happened. That kind of love can undo a person just as deeply as violence – and often, more invisibly.
I did not bathe to feel clean.
I bathed to soften the ache in my thighs.
To convince my muscles they were safe again.
To prove to myself that I could touch my own skin without flinching.
That ache?
It was from the way he tried to take more than I ever offered.
Most nights it was alcohol-fueled.
That is when he would try to go further – always pushing, always testing.
He would try to do anal. Repeatedly.
It never worked. Not once.
Because I could not relax. Because I did not want it.
Because my body knew it was not okay – even if I did not say the words aloud every time.
Attempting to jam something in does not make it sex.
It makes it survival for the one being forced to stay still.
Baths became a way to disappear.
Under the water, everything went quiet.
No noise. No pressure. Just a pause.
I have a big corner tub – the kind you can sink into & lose yourself for a while.
My water heater does not have a limit anymore.
I made damn sure of that.
I would slip under the surface until my skin flushed red from the heat –
like maybe it could boil away the memory.
It was not mine.
What happened.
What he took.
What he ignored.
But I carried it.
In my breath. In my bones. In the way I did not meet my own eyes in the mirror for days.
They say to name the feeling.
But sometimes the feeling does not have a name.
It is simply wrong.
& the world does not ask, “How do you feel today?”
It asks, “Why didn’t you leave?”
It asks, “Are you sure it was that bad?”
It was.
Even if I smiled the next morning.
Even if I said I was fine.
Even if I kept my voice soft so he would not accuse me of making a scene.
This was not about violence.
It was about permission – denied.
Pain – dismissed.
Violation – rewritten as love.
I did not cry in the moment.
I rarely do.
But when the tears came later, they arrived without warning.
- In the car.
- While reading a book.
- When he fell asleep.
- On walks when no one could see me.
Even when I did everything I could to let it go –
it clung to me.
Not because I wanted it.
Not because I did not say no loud enough.
But because it was not mine to carry in the first place.
That is the thing no one tells you:
Even when you did not deserve it –
you still feel the weight of it.
You cannot wash off what was not yours.
But maybe you can set it down.
Even just for a moment.
Even just with words.
Even just by writing this.
Xoxo ♡
Whisper to the ghosts. Yell into the void. Just don’t be an asshole.