Take Me There 🌊

This is the rape joke: My best friend was four years old the first time his father came into his room at midnight and tore out his throat. He still has days when I cannot hold him because the memory of a bleeding trachea haunts his doorway. He has not been home for the holidays in many years, but – even now – hands are seen as weapons. This is the rape joke: I have been told by more than twenty people that they have been raped. To all of them, I asked where the rapist was. From none of them, I heard ‘jail.’ This is the rape joke: Once my brother told me that I was so ugly, I would be a virgin forever. Unless someone raped me. But even they wouldn’t come back for seconds. This is the rape joke: I believed him. This is the rape joke: I now look at every woman on the street and wonder if the space between her legs is a crime scene, surrounded by ripped caution tape. The statistics tell me that this is so common that I will never be in a room that does not contain a survivor. Not even if I am in that room alone. This is the rape joke: I was thirteen years old, and he was supposed to be just a friend. This is the rape joke: When his older brother came home, the boy pulled away. He wiped the tears from my face and said ‘we should do this again some time.’ This is the rape joke: When I finally told my parents, they asked what I had been wearing. This is the rape joke: I had been wearing my innocence. My trust. I had worn the love I held for humanity and expected to be treated well. I had never been taught that I would be that girl, the one who keeps a mine of secrets between her legs – that girl was the slut. I wasn’t supposed to be breakable. What had I been wearing? I wore the rape joke, then I became it.