fifteen hours after deleting my rapist from my iphone i remember that it is springtime

Some flowers bloom first, I notice the cherry blossoms dancing in the wind, Jess notices the forsythias on the highway. The Boonton Reservoir is cool and blue. I used to want to die but now I grow, I grow. I want to plant my feet down and raise my arms up, let thorny vines snake around me and I’ll pop blueberries in my mouth and forget who I am. Before I was in therapy, well, I was in therapy, but before I met a therapist I really liked, I tried to therapize myself before our sessions. I would make a list of who I am, but not really know who I am, and it would just come out as vague personality flaws, so when Nancy asked if I liked myself I could just say yes, no, why, because. I told my brother at fifteen that I’m a socialist, he said, okay, whatever you say, as long as you back it up. Back it up, to the times before I ate, before I ate too much, after I ate, stopped eating. It’s just food. Look at these beautiful pockets of fat on my thighs and how they mash together when I stand up straight. Look at my beautiful, clear, skin, littered only with the smallest bruises and memories of violence. See how it’s smooth. After he raped me I was sick for four weeks with this awful cold, double pinkeye, sinus infection. It’s like his seed was literally toxic. The truth is, the smaller you get, the younger you look. Like a little girl. When I sat across the coffee table from my childhood crush a town away from our community college I learned that it’s easy for your body to remember warmth. My favorite therapist says that the dreams where I slit my wrists are progress. Getting better isn’t as scary as it sounds, though. I read it in a play, once. Breath with sound. So, let’s spend the hot days inside, don’t wonder why it’s ninety degrees in April, don’t wonder at all. Spend the days living, deciding, writing. Singing. Taking my clothes off and putting them on again. 

Ronit May is a twenty year old social work student at Ramapo College. Their work has been published in The Closed Eye Open’s Issue XI, The Blood Pudding, StreetLit, and more. They are working on their second chapbook, A Sentence Is A Garden You Stumble Through (Hoping To Pick A Word So Beautiful).