A Prequel to Look, But Don't Touch

(Raw and Unedited)

Worth

He touched me in the dark.

He shoved his tongue into my mouth and fed me poison.

His poison.

And because I was so lost in that dark, I let it happen.

I let his lust and hatred for the world consume me. Until all the colors were replaced with black, suicide, and heartache.

He told me that when he used to do it, he'd create a heart. With his blade. Though I was never sure why...I was just glad. Glad that someone else saw the pain that drowned me, and swam in that same water with me.

But it wasn't enough.

I was never enough for him no matter what lengths I went to in order to keep him.

If he said he wanted to screw, I said I would.

If he said he wanted to kiss me, I let him turn my head and spill his venom into my mouth. I let him invade my soul with every touch I didn't want, every look I repulsed, and every word that hurt.

He rejected me for every thing I said. Everything I am.

Or was.

When I kissed him on the cheek, he was disgusted.

When I told him about my past, he made fun of me for it.

And I was too broken to tell him how much that hurt.

Especially when he called me a whore and I spent my entire life feeling like one.

My heart was already cracked with every time I was picked last. Every moment someone was chosen over me, in a world where no one ever reciprocated my feelings.

It was a mutually destructive existence.

And he said it was love.

I started wearing two shirts.

To try and cover up my pain and my vulnerability.

I started having nightmares.

And eventually, in the early mornings...I'd forget how to breathe.

I'd have panic attacks.

I already felt inadequate and burdensome, but he doubled that feeling when he left me. And then dared to coming crawling back for forgiveness. After all that he'd done.

We'd done.

He kept asking me.

And asking me.

And asking me.

And asking me for a picture of myself.

Something he could jack off to.

Something that could feed his ever-growing lust.

And I got sick of it.

But I was swallowed up in darkness. I didn't care enough to say no anymore. I wanted it all to stop. Life and the questions and the worthlessness. I wanted to be something to somebody.

Pretty. Beautiful. Sexy.

So I took off my shirt.

I stripped off my bra.

And I sent it to him.

He said he didn't receive it.

And like a fool, I believed him.

So I sent him another.

He commented on the size. Like weighing watermelons at a grocery store, or appraising a piece of furniture.

He told me he loved me...

...then he began to talk to me less and less.

And eventually, I started to act out.

Things got too hot.

I wanted out.

I so badly wanted out.

No one supported me like I needed.

No one tried to save me.

So, I only allowed myself the 'love' I thought I deserved.

Which wasn't really love at all.

But I didn't know what to do.

I didn't know how to get him to stop feeling me up or hugging me to cop a feel.

I didn't know how to be there for him in his suicidal, death-craving mentality when I was the same.

I didn't know how to help us.

So I took it.

And took it.

And...took it...

And eventually, my heart seemed to just...die.

Right after he left.

And my shield broke.

My defenses fell.

And I cried on the carpet of a high school classroom, pathetically pouring my soul-warping emotions right in front of my two best friends.

I couldn't take that.

It was two years, maybe three before someone found me.

It was years before all the heavy crap in my life lifted, and I actually felt my soul coming back to life.

Waking me from the slumber I'd been in since he left.

They found me in a strip club.

But I walked out, with them, a blossoming spirit.

I could feel myself flowering.

Becoming something other than a slut that played homewrecker to a friend.

Something other than someone that just wanted to die. And to leave all this aching and pain behind.

Something other than a whore that was exposed to sex at the age of nine, and hadn't forgotten it since.

I was saved.

And even though I'm still so badly bruised.

And I feel messed up almost every day.

I delight in the days I don't.

Those are my favorite days.

The ones where I don't have to feel screwed up. Like I actually have a chance at not being taken for granted. To be wanted and loved and honored and appreciated. Not rejected and crushed into tiny pieces.

And maybe someday, I'll truly see my worth.

Not the rumors of what every human's purpose is for being here.

Or finding 'true love.'

But actual, genuine worth.

Maybe they can help me find it.