The Hanged Man
CW: Domestic Violence
I wind my legs around the fabric, though I do it by feel because I’m hanging upside down. Tonight, the fabric is turquoise. Sometimes it’s black. Or purple. But I am always upside down when I wind my legs around it. The hammock is in a band around my waist, and I feel it digging into my flesh right above my hips. I launch myself forward using my abs and grab it right outside my knees as I bend them. I’m folded in half for as long as it takes to pull myself into a seated position, kicking my legs and moving the fabric from knees to my upper thighs. My legs are covered in nylon and spandex, but the fabric still burns as it moves, and I know there will be bruises by the time I arrive home.
I sit for a moment, looking around at the other people climbing silks and spinning on the lyra, before lowering myself back down. I reposition myself to where I began, upside down with my legs wound around the fabric, but I don’t release myself from the hammock. Instead, I bend one leg and grab the fabric on that side. I pull myself up again, rotating my hips and pushing against it with my foot. The hammock tightens around my calf and lets me know the bruise that already lives in that space will be a spectacular shade of purple before the night ends. But for now, my hips have rotated and I am sitting in a Z shape. The hammock is a boa constricting my limbs and the pain reassures me that I’m secure.
The cramping in my calf indicates that it’s time to switch sides. I lower myself a third time, upside down like the Hanged Man, choosing suspension for myself. My world looks different from here, and things I would not have noticed before invite me to inspect them. The creases on the thick pad beneath me are much closer to my face than they would be otherwise. I catch sight of myself in the mirror, and I never stop being surprised by my reflection. I repeat my previous motions on the other leg. My hips don’t want to rotate in this direction and getting into position is more difficult. I push through the resistance and I am once again looking out across the floor. The pain is greater, but I endure it as long as I can. I know that next time my body will assume this position more willingly.
I’m afraid of heights, but I’m not as high as I could be and this doesn’t frighten me. I trust the hammock to hold my weight, and I trust myself inside of it. This shape isn’t pretty, yet, but all my muscles engage to hold the pose. It highlights my strength, and I feel powerful.
It’s not until later that evening that I think about a time that’s both distant and present, where bruises didn’t accompany pride and pain meant the opposite of security. It didn’t start with pain, though it never does. It started with “I just want to spend time with you” before moving to “why do you always have to piss me off?” The wall would slam into my back, his fingers coiled around my jaw, and my only thought would be “Don’t move. Be still and maybe he’ll let me go.”
Back then, the bruises were finger shaped, smaller than the wide bands made by the hammock but more damaging. They curled around my arms, wrapped around my thighs. My slight frame became tiny. I made everything about me smaller, but no matter how small I made myself, his fingers always found their way to fist in my hair. I’ve finally forgotten what the ceilings looked like.
I finally summoned the courage to leave, and then I found out I was pregnant. All of my plans dissolved into two pink lines, and I knew that he would never let me go so long as I was bearing his son. I resolved to do whatever I needed for this child. If I loved my son enough, I could endure anything. Pregnancy offered no respite from the violence, though he used his words more than his hands. Giving birth offered no opportunity for rest. Motherhood only created divided loyalties. He would scream at me to take care of his needs before the baby’s, but in this one thing I refused to bend. I loved my son more than I feared my husband. In a rare moment of defiance, I told him, “You will never break me.” Though he tried his damnedest, I never broke.
It’s been over two decades, and I have only now stopped having the nightmare where I am trapped alone with him in a house with no doors and no windows, and he is coming. The only bruises on my body come from twisting the hammock over and around myself until not even letting go will let me fall. The pain will fade with time and practice, and my skin will refuse to accept the marks. The voices shouting at me offer words of encouragement and praise, and there are no hands to force my gaze to the ceiling. I bring my own head back as my body arches, contorting into different shapes. And I do not break.
