#ME TOO
Daniela Hernandez-Gil
You made me afraid of everything. Of the blue plastic bus chairs, of early mornings, and of the sound of sudden stops. 6:17 became my hell, and you became my vice. My dad always drove me to the corner, sheltering me in a small BMW, of the world’s atrocities, and as we waited I realized how ironic it was that the biggest one was only 4 blocks away. I tried to sleep; I tried to configure my small frame in such a way that I would take up the whole chair, maybe hoping that you woke up late or chose to sit in the back. Never. You never did. It started out innocently, you and I. You would sleep on my shoulder as I would try to explain away the hollow of my eyes, but the more comfort we sought out, the more dignified you became. I was never one to shy from my own words, but I didn’t understand this or us or anything really; you made me shrivel into the papers you ripped from my books. I couldn’t say stop, I thought you knew. Your hesitation gave me confidence, and the first few times I brushed it off. While I slept you had absolutely no way of configuring the glass puzzles without hurting yourself. My mind searched for a contradiction to dig up, but your smile only muddled the dirt. Why did you stop after I got a boyfriend? Why was his silence more impactful than my “STOP no,” or my “You have a girlfriend,” or my “Don’t do this anymore I don’t like it,”?
16
I said stop. I said no. Half-asleep and dreary eyed I would try everything to make it impossible for you to reach my body. You persisted. I never reported you, remembering how you told me that your father had passed, I saw the slightest bit of humanity you never saw in me. I spared you the life sentence I am forced to carry. You will probably never read this, you will probably never remember. You caused my addiction to silence, my addiction to fear. But you have also caused me to grow up too fast with the pain in knowing who holds my trust. I am afraid of everything, except you. You are merely but a few words etched in my memory, faded and worn, of smirking faces and strange looks. You made the haze rise over my eyes, letting me see the gum filled seats and graffitied windows, instead of the green stop lights and the yellow canaries. I don’t look you in the eye though, when we cross paths. Because I know if you did, the tears in mine would’ve made you stop.