witty-remark's Diaryland Diary

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Leda and the Swan

The best thing he did for me was take me to Venice. We lost our way somewhere between the winding, narrow streets behind the thin, colorful homes and shops and found ourselves wedged between two brick walls so tight, we had to hunch our shoulders, walking single-file, to slip out. We got caught in a thunderstorm that made the water rise to the lip of the city and spill over. The doors of homes slammed shut and the steps leading to them became submerged. The entire city was barren in minutes.

We hid beneath the sloping roof of a small church while water splashed violently over the sidewalk. Our umbrella, slapped around by the wind, had become a landscape of metal branches sharply piercing through black plastic hills. For some reason, this struck us as hilarious. We laughed until the sun squeezed through the thick, grey clouds. Until we took the train home. His home. His temporary home. Because he was on vacation like I was. Which meant we got to be different. Because you get to be different on vacation. You get to talk differently. And act differently. Even fuck differently.

The worst thing he did to me was rape me. It wasn�t on vacation. It was at home. My home. My permanent home. But it isn�t supposed to happen there. You aren�t supposed to get raped in your home. Especially not in your own room. Looking at the same poster you�ve looked at for the past two years. The one you got so used to being there you stopped even noticing it. The one you can�t take your eyes off now because looking anywhere else is too close to looking at, near, or into the eyes of whatever is responsible for the heavy weight pressing down on you. Rape doesn�t happen in your own bedroom, does it?

It happens at night, in dark alleyways. When you�re drunk and stumbling, and approached by a stranger. Not someone you�re in a relationship with. Someone who once cried because they couldn�t believe how anyone could hurt you. Someone who swept your hair away to blow eyelashes off your cheek. Someone who, in this same fucking bed, clasped your hand and said they want a wife like you. It shouldn�t have happened in this bed. It should have happened between those two brick walls. The ones we had to hunch our shoulders and walk single-file to slip out of. Or it shouldn�t have happened at all.

5:50 p.m. - Thursday, Apr. 18, 2013

Then - Now