This Is Not the Worst Thing That's Happened to Me

this used to be a secret

Art; The Jupier Tree

NOTE: This is a story about rape. If you are not in a mental or emotional space to be able to read such a thing, please be kind to yourself and find something else to read. I will not be offended.

A reminder: REASONS FOR LIVING with Esmé Weijun Wang is a newsletter that comes out every other week and is free, featuring a guest essay, poem, piece of visual art, and journal prompt. These things all hang together in one singular edition.

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In my second book, The Collected Schizophrenias, I wrote slantwise about being raped. However, I only wrote about the incident under the condition that I would not describe what happened to me. I’d spent so much time shivering in an imaginary trial, bearing testimony and being called a liar. I preferred the reader to imagine the incident: the luminous moon, the streetlamp near it glowing like a second lunar entity. Indeed, I sat with my red polyester shirt half undone. He began to push me down onto the cold stone bench where he’d been biting my exposed and pale breasts. I was okay with the biting, but I was afraid of lying down; I’d always been afraid of lying down when in the presence of a man.

“What are you doing,” I said. He pushed. I tried to resist, but he was high—an eighteen-year-old landscaper with strong hands and stubborn arms—and I was afraid. Minutes before, he’d wrapped his hands around my neck and choked me hard from behind until I couldn’t breathe. He’d laughed when he let go, asking, “What, did you think I’d kill you?”