A Series of Notes

Why are you suicidal?
It is a simple question,
but impossible to answer.

I.
Begin with birth,
with two parents,
one who says you are planned
and the other who says you are an accident.
This is supposedly the same as the next child, as well.
Imagine this house,
for it cannot be a home
when one parent says you are planned
and the other says you are an accident.
Imagine the eventual divorce,
imagine being sent away with your mother
(the one who planned)
and rejected by your father
(the one who crashed into parenthood)
and imagine her in pain.
Imagine her childhood,
if you will:
the abuse not ended by becoming
a homeless fourteen year old child,
kicked out for being molested by her father,
the abuse not ended,
but increased by the presence of
precocious prostitutes and pimps.
Imagine her sudden adulthood,
her motherhood at eighteen,
her divorce before twenty-five,
her inability to care for two girl-children
as a single mom
without a little help
when there is no help in this world.
She cannot cope;
she sends the girls back to the father,
and now I am twice-rejected,
once by my accidental father,
once by my intentional mother.
II.
Childhood was a rude awakening
to how men take from women and girls
whatever they want
with no consequences.
First the family friend:
he is Mister Cold Hands,
and he touches what shouldn't be touched;
the breasts of children are not toys for adults.
My father sends him away,
I believe I never see him again
When I am an adult,
I see that he is one of my father's
internet friends.
Family friend the second:
also handsy,
below the belt.
I never reported him for myself,
but when a member of his family
told us what he did to her at night,
we told our mother,
and she told the cops.
He got out of jail recently;
I guess even pedophiles and child rapists
can be paroled for good behavior.
III.
Two boys in art class,
rude lewd crude dudes:
what are your digits?
do you even know what that means?
something something boobs
something something penis
and ultimately I report their harassment.
The principal pulls out the old trope:
do you have a sister?
would you like her to be treated this way?
something something be gentlemen
something something slap on the wrist.
We all return to art class;
they are not permitted to speak to me,
but this does not prevent them
from speaking at me,
around me,
over me.
Eventually we move
for other reasons:
my stepmother wants to be closer
to work, to schools she prefers,
to be further from her ex.
Now we have brothers,
now she is so tired,
now my father is sick
with the same sickness some uncle
forced on him.
At the time all I know
is that this is wrong,
he shouldn't do this,
but I cannot speak,
for even my words
and the words of my sister
are ignored.
I flee home at the first opportunity,
abandoning her to suffer alone;
abandoning my brothers and sisters all
to the tyranny of two
who are both too tired
to take responsibility for their actions.
When I confront him
by email
years after the fact,
she tells me not to send things like that by email,
he gives me an article about doctors who plant memories,
and obliquely apologizes
for loving me too much,
and nothing is ever resolved.
I worry what is in store
for my brothers,
especially when years again later
I learn that his uncle also hurt him.
IV.
Now I am a quasi-adult,
free to be snatched up by the first predators
who scent me.
I do not remember
how my hymen was ruptured;
I have reconstructed
what must have happened
when teachers and friends made assumptions
about my consent to do anything but sleep
with that man
in that bunkbed
when I was black-out drunk
for the first time.
Free to be messaged at work
by the techie
who assumes a friendly girl
is an available girl
especially when she is so much younger
and that is so hot.
Free to get blacked-out again
when rooming with another older man
who also makes presumptions.
Free to be groomed
into a fantasy submissive
for the boy who 'rescued' her
from her family.
Free to have every request ignored,
every 'no' translated into a 'yes,'
every interest thwarted,
every desire subverted,
free to be convinced that rape
is never rape,
so she can never have been raped,
she is just a dirty, cheating, lying slut.
The boyfriend trots her out amongst friends
to 'confess' to her 'lies' about rape.
The husband rapes her
and tells her she 'knows' that she wants it,
and that he has never
ever
ever
raped her or anyone,
not even the boy she saw him rape.
And the very word
'abuse'
is forbidden
under his roof.
V.
What are friends?
I have heard tales
of people who have been together
since childhood,
of people who are there for you every single day,
of girls who always have your back
of the inherent sisterhood of women,
of the possibility of real friendship
between men and women,
of long-distance relationships
that span decades,
of people you can always trust,
of people who will never hurt you
on purpose anyway,
of people called friends.
I am still not sure
I have ever met one of these people.
The first time I survived rape,
I did it alone,
surrounded by people who claimed
to be friends.
When I told these claimed friends
about my father,
they called me a liar,
said I was imagining things,
that they imagined terrible things too,
just to get off;
they said I was crazy.
When I told these friends about other men,
they said I just wanted attention,
that I was a drama-queen,
that I was so vain and presumed so much
about the intentions of my rapists,
my molesters,
my harassers.
When I told these friends about my husband,
they pretended to care for about a week,
and then decided I was exaggerating,
that he was the real victim,
that he needed their help more than I
during and after the divorce,
that he needed regular updates
on my activities,
because he obviously cared so much about me,
he was so upset,
he was hurting so badly.
They said I hated these men,
the ones I 'falsely' accused,
and by saying
they didn't want to take sides
they took the side of rapists.
VI.
These are not reasons to commit suicide,
some say.
What they really mean is that
there is no reason to commit suicide,
which is patently false.
Consider:
if there were no reason to commit suicide,
then there would be no such thing as suicide.
Hold on now,
you might think:
there are certainly causes to suicide;
for a thing cannot be uncaused.
However,
causes are not reasons,
and reason implies logic,
or good rationale,
or an understandable explanation,
and none of these things
could possibly be employed
when one commits suicide.
So you say, but
I think you presume too much.
Human action has reasons,
which are usually causes only,
logic being applied solely after the fact
in most cases.