Faces
Fall 2011: I slipped under and taught myself to cope under clouds. Eventually, those became the only moments where I could feel myself; so, I smoked daily and started chasing to mask.
Spring 2012: I stood in the kitchen and leaned in as months of suppression spilled out. I’d drank to cope and in that moment, after the smallest of touches, I came undone. So, I stopped drinking, but I kept my smoke because although, I never won, escapism was my favorite race.
I drank to forget.
Fall 2013: I spent the first $40 I made as a server on malt liquor. I knew I had a look to me - baby-faced with around the way tendencies. It’s true, we inherit the sins of our parents; so, I flirted with boundaries.
Spring 2014: The first time, he removed the condom midway. I didn’t realize the missing rubber until he finished. Flashes of my girlfriend, red faced and broken, after experiencing something similar came to me.
“He violated my consent,” echoed her voice in my head. So, I spoke up.
“You knew,” he said immediately silencing my protests.
I dressed myself and slipped into my green ‘02 L2 holding blame and shame. I wondered how I’d tell anyone. Quickly, I decided that I couldn’t because I had no business being there in the first place.
“This is the life I chose,” I said to myself.
So, I suppressed.
That should’ve been enough, but it wasn’t. Instead, I leaned deeper into the line, further pushing back the boundary. Months later, I was a shell of a shell of myself. I’d managed to drink my way out of two semesters, the newspaper and hip hop. I’d put myself in a space where I could only write blasted while sobbing through lyrics of Mac Miller’s ‘Faces’. I knew the faces that vices concealed, even more I understood wanting to die because escaping doesn’t burn grief, sorrow or disappointment away.
I drank to forget.
I’d committed to taking a friend to a job interview. So, in my morning after clothes, I drove my friend to Chesapeake. Barely making it there awake and desperate for just a few moments of sleep, I returned to the two-bedroom ranch and passed out. I woke up on my stomach with him pressed against my ass and inside of me. I didn’t move. I didn’t push him off nor did I scream or shout. Demoralized, I closed my eyes and just wished myself back to sleep.
I drank to forget.
“I knew you were a hoe,” screamed back his voice.
He told the staff during my night off. His version of course, but he told. He sat at the bar and traded text messages between drunken voicemails. Then he berated me in the parking lot when I denied it and refused to accept his apology.
“You violated me,” I thought. “So, I can not let you take what’s left of my dignity in front of these people.”
I drank to forget.
I woke up the morning after with burn holes in my dress and liquor on my breath. Still drunk, still high, I replayed the lies I spilled. They were choppy and incoherent. As I shook my head while driving back to campus I thought, “These are not my friends.”
I smoked to fill.
Fall 2014: Broken, I moved across the water. I painted my walls dark and spent a small fortune on bottles and marijuana. I tried to forget, so I lined my headboard with bottles and got high so I’d have the courage to leave my home. Escapism crippled me.
I smoked to feel.
Fall 2015: I answered. Out of obligation, I stepped away mid rotation to find some privacy. Quickly, the conversation escalated and I found myself with half a beer in one hand and a soaked phone in the other. It’d happened again; the smallest touch had undone me.
“I’m ready to stop living like this,” I sobbed.
Overlooked, I brushed myself off and got into my car to make my way home. While merging on the highway I forgot to check my blind spot and nearly lost my life again. Shaken and desperate, I called my mom.
“Can you come get me?”
I sat curled in the fetal position of my backseat as I waited for her to show. She drove my car and with my brother, my sister followed behind. I’ve never been more embarrassed.
I drank to forget and I smoked to fill.
After five years in a drunken stupor and four willingly unable to pass a drug test, I got sick of being disgusted at the sight of myself. I’d taught myself to give my power away, to run from grief, to suppress the depths of me, to accept anyone and now it was time for me to heal. So, I spent three years developing the confidence to take my power back.