Anonymous

It’s real sticky-wicked to have your body become unpredictable and tortuously painful. So here I am. Homeless. Meditation is my medication.

What do you do when you have no choice on how you get to work?

I remained silent, after I was sexually harassed at work. I was terrified if I spoke up I would lose my job for making a mountain out of a molehill.

There really isn't anything unusual about our union. For all intents and purposes it's actually a pretty typical marriage. Except we're in an open marriage.

Women who are nuns do not have intimacy with the opposite sex. Some people never get any. But for me, that was the deal killer. It is like eating potato chips; you can never have just one. Besides, I don't like to watch the news by myself.

It never felt like sexual assault, him taking the sex I didn’t offer. It felt more like a silent agreement. I surrendered to sex; he didn’t complain.

When I left the hospital the night that he was admitted, I sat in the parking lot gasping with big ugly sobs and looking for someone to blame — beginning with myself. I'm his mother, and I'm the only consistent parent he's ever had. As I finally made my way home, with tears streaming down my face and my mouth open in a silent scream of pain, all I could ask myself was "what have I done?" How could I have allowed my son to be hurt so deeply, and in so many ways?

I sat up abruptly and to my horror saw this woman using this tiny tube of glue to affix these sparkly diamante things to my lady parts . . .

... the last thing I want to do is open my legs for a man to penetrate me. Or to pleasure a man with any part of my body. Even if that man is my loving fiancé, who does listen, who does understand (as best he can), who does respect me through this ongoing turmoil. It is all too symbolic of the lifetime I have already experienced of being fucked and then told to smile and politely ask for more.

I often think about the people in my hometown whose lives were ruined because they live in the “wrong” state. That same stigma causes me to feel horrible after I smoke.