Bitchy January prompt: anti-feminist
How Far Can You Go For The One You Love?
Lose yourself for a start.
They aren’t birthmarks. Neither did they come from nowhere but now, on my right ear, I have two keloids the size of a matchstick head. On my left ear, there are two more.
My friend who is a doctor thinks that I should have them excised. But that is because she thinks they are unsightly in an otherwise clear skin. My mother thinks I should have them excised too because she asks:
What if they become cancerous?
Thank you, mom. New fear (however illogical) unlocked.
But I want to keep these matchstick-sized keloids because while most of the abuse I went through caused internal and emotional scars, these keloids are the only external scars of a time in my life that I hopefully will never live through again.
I would look on social media or in movies and see women who would go to the tattoo store and get more body piercings — on the ears, tongue, nose, and wherever else they pleased. I thought they looked nice. I thought these piercings made them — cooler…more desirable.
The women who had more piercings gave me the vibe that they were unafraid. No one could abuse them. Their body and their body autonomy — to do to their body as they pleased, it was proof of that.
And I wanted to be seen that way.
But my reality was not that way. I was drowning in daily abuse:
Idiot!
Fool!
He would yell incessantly at me. He never cared who was around. He never cared who heard him. He never cared how often he eroded my self-worth.
I cared.
I was still trying to maintain that picture-perfect image that we were fine. That we loved each other oh so much.
He never cared. But I did — deeply.
Get out!
He would yell as I tried for the two-hundredth time to ask him what was wrong with us and how I could fix it so we would be okay again.
You will keep bringing up problems where there are none. One day, I will leave this house for you and you will realize that this nonsense you do is the problem. You are the problem! Get out!
Click!
He would bolt his door.
And I would remember once more that he hated it so much when I entered his room…
It wasn’t always this way. He wasn’t always this way — mean. Cruel. Evil. And I…I wasn’t always this way — weak, stupid. Enabling.
I wanted to be like those pierced women on social media and in the movies who wore their short skirts, big boots and had their hair up in ponytails, chewing gums carelessly and telling everyone to fuck off. I wanted their energy. I wanted to be seen as strong and not giving a damn about consequences.
But I was not those women. I was more like the leprous men and women in Biblical times. No one wanted them. No one came close to them and
Unclean!
They had to ring a bell and let people know they were approaching so people would avoid them.
I am certain no one else has felt I am leprous but, the one man I wanted…the one man I wanted to love and care, he felt that way. I was so focused on him that I began to think — if HE felt this way towards me after years of loving me, I truly must deserve all this maltreatment. And so, I wanted him…no, I needed him to love me.
And I needed his approval. I lived for it.
I wanted to casually bring it up to him that I wanted to go and get more piercings.
But, I couldn’t tell him why I wanted to get more piercings. I also felt that he would laugh at me…
Drama queen
He would call me again.
By the end of that relationship, I was no more human to him. I was just a piece of rock that he seemed to stub his toe on. And he stubbed quite often — given how often he yelled.
So I didn’t tell him that I would get more piercings. Instead, I told my friend who gave herself — two nose piercings and three piercings on each ear.
It doesn’t hurt me.
She told me often.
I asked her to pierce my ears.
Five months later, pus still flowed from them, they were still swollen and the pains never waned.
I had powered through for those months.
I don’t even think the man I went through all that trouble to seem cool to noticed.
But he sure took notice when the earrings came off and the keloids appeared.
“What did you do to yourself, again?” He asked with a chuckle as he shook his head.
Drama Queen. He concluded.
Medium, you get to hear the truth of my ear keloids. I have never told this to anyone in my real life. But, I saw the prompt on Bitchy — Anti-Feminism and I knew I wanted to share this with you. I got those piercings not for me — but for him. To be seen by him.
And he did see me alright — as an ugly scar to be removed.
Will I excise these keloids?
I truly do not know. I want them to remain on my ears as a reminder of different things — I was stupid. I was abused. I enabled my abuse.
When you see my ears, you will see my keloids as scars — maybe ugly scars. For me, those same scars remind me of a time that I lost myself. A time I existed just to please another person. A time I was nothing. A time no one will ever take me back to.
For me, these ugly scars are about regaining myself. About becoming — my becoming.
Thank you for reading.
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I got these molds because
