when my stomachs in charge

Ok so bear with me (and yeah I'm now addressing the masses that are CLEARLY reading this...god I'm lame today....), but I need some vent space, and what, pray tell, is the internet for except for venting?

well porn, but other than that.



I saw him today.
ok, not really. I saw a really brief shot of him in the middle of a pan on a piece about the Daily News folding. there he was. HE. HIM. stupid old man hat and ugly glasses over fat jowels jiggling under pube beard.
for three seconds.
and suddenly, there I am like one of those horrible flashback movie scenes (cue the squiggly lines). Flash first year. chugging a beer next to him in J's room. Flash Second year. coming back from Halloween at the palace and having him jostle me around and try to pull my skirt up- in jest. Flash it's dark and the world is spinning and his hands.....Flash and it's fourth year and I'm walking past the quad hoping not to see him and yet at the same time hoping to see him because this, this is nothing, this is not anythign I need to care about. Flash and there's that denial and that panic and Panic at the disco is chanting in my head (god this even has the poorly thought out emo soundtrack)- "we were just getting to the part where the shock sets in and the stomach acid finds a new way to make you get sick. . .I think of what you did and I hope to god it was worth it....Is it still me that makes you sweat am I who you think about in bed, when the lights are dim and you're sliding off her dress....."
yeah that was garbled but... that's it. that's my brain. garbled.
also, so is my stomach. in that three seconds where there he was. not last year in a photo like when I found our class picture in a box packing to move back here and I tore it in half becasue there he was, in teh middle. lurking. and smiling. noraml and safe and not satan in a bad tshirt. cause you know, he's not. he did something horrible. something..unspeakably bad. but at heart he's just a sad little man.
I think that, but...in my head he's still larger than that. in my head he still makes my stomach roll the way it did that day in Fourth year, when he started seeing throuhg me and I think I first knew something was hideously wrong with the whole situation (better late than never I suppose), and I was walking past the quad and htere he was in brown cords and an ugly tshirt laughing. and him laughing made me run and turn the corner and vomit into a bush on lilac street. gagging.
I'm glad I did though. my stomach is smarter than my brain, clearly. when my stomachs in charge, I push him off me when he tries to hug me that night, say NO and turn and walk away. in front of everyone. in front of my self. but when my brain wakes up the next morning I apologize and next time I see him I let him hug me, and I tell myself the smell of him doesn't make me sick.
When my stomachs in charge it's less Panic At the Disco and more John Meyer 'say'. When my stomachs in charge, I tell him to get out of my life and go drink with H and break out and feel......human. When my stomachs in charge I tell him I've had it and I tell him no. WHne my stomachs in charge I push him off get off that bed go to the bathroom and stare at my brain and say this is wrong.
but my brain, see, it doesn't listen. my brain says 'oh it's not that bad'. my brain's drunk of course.
stomachs are smarter. my stomach got me out of that room many times..my stomach had me standing in that bathroom that first time, telling mysefl I should leave, THEN. early. before all the booze before it got dark and late before I passed out and woke up with his hands down my pants. my stomach had me curled on the edge of his bed after, after he'd passed out, aching to get up, leave. but I didn't know how to get home. I didn't know his address or have a cell to call a cab, I didn't want to wander around dartmouth alone at night. and my brain chimed in saying what had happened wasn't that bad.
it was my brain taht spent a summer telling me that really, I was overreacting. and it was my brain that said it was ok to go back over there, and drink that much, and that it wasn't weird at all when I spilled down my shirt, and was too drunk to button the one he lent me, and he did it for me. My brain kept shushing my stomach, until, again, after it'd stopped, and my brain was dead from alcohol, and my stomach had me in his kitchen drinkign water and again plotting how to get out.
My stomach always knew. my stomach knew something was wrong that time after my birhtday when he was hurtin gme. that's when my brain woke up, when he cut off it's oxygen. stupid brain. If I wasn't a total fool it would never have gotten that far.
My stomach has yet to forgive my brain for that. Or for the last time. when he buzzed and my stomach said jsut let him buzz. don't buzz him in. leave him down there. you don't want this. my brain pressed the button but my stomach kept me in that chair when he flopped on my couch, kept me sitting up when he pulled me down on the bed, got me out of the room to get tea, change the music, or jsut hang off the bed out of his reach when he was told me to take my fucking pants off......but my brain let him.
my stomach was what called that meeting by the harbour and walked 15 minutes back an forth, plotting how best to kick him out of my life. it was my stomach that didn't look at him or say anything as we walked, and that sat, staring out at the full moon glinting on the harbour, and made my mouth saying I couldn't forgive him, and we couldn't be friends. but my brain made me listen to him after- it was only polite. it was my brain that got convinced, my braint hat invited him to thanksgiving, my brain that told me this wasn't a problem, I was overreacting, and my stomach was a fool.

and it's my stomach today when I see him, for the first time, this year. recent. that's what he looked like, yesterday. It's this time of year and I'm held together with work and stupid determination to not go under again, wearing long sleaves becasue I was weak, while he's laughing.
granted he's now laughing on the unemployment line but...
my brain might say it's ok that he doesn't get it and that it doesn't matter that what he did isn't tearing him apart, but my stomach begs to differ.
My stomach would much prefer if he was a ball of repentent goo, or in a cell, or with a record, or if everyone knew and used the big scary R word to describe him.
but my brain poo-poos that. my brain says its petty and vindicitive. my brain says that I should let it go, forgive. my brain in weaker moments also tells me I have no right to be angry.
And that's the thing my stomach doesn't really like; that I'm not really angry. I'm not. I'm hurt and I'm aching but I'm not....mad at what he did to me. my brain knows it and is working very hard to convince my stomach that I deserved what happened, that I let it happen, and that it wasn't that bad, I'm making it up, get over it grow up it happens allt he time it's just sex don't be so dramatic you wanted it you deserved it you could have stopped it but didn't.
and my brain likes to ad that my friends are still his freinds. and that I don't want to have to drag this all out in court to win only on the technicality that yes, in fact, he got me drunk, urged me on time nad again to drink, including once when he urged me to drink a whole pint of JD straight, then wouldn't stop even after I'd thrown up.
yeah, assholes are real classy.

so I saw a picture of him.and just like when I thought I may possibly see him in the grocery store and jumped behind a display of canned peas, my stomach hit the ground. my brain said it was ridiculous, but my stomach is trying to save me.
I don't know what I'll do if I ever come face to face with him. eye level with him. see him see me. smell him. see his hands and face and eyes and know.
last time I saw him, he kept looking at me. like he had something to say. my brain wants to hear.
my stomach knows that will kill me.
its pretty simple. I'm sad and pathetic and a year later, I still cant' handle seeing him. It. Will Kill Me. literally and quite simply.
I survived him. I did. I graduated and I got a job and I have friends and I laugh and all that, even though I'm hollow, evne though soemtimes, I'm not there. sometimes it's my stomach runnign the show makign me go through the motions while my brain takes a holiday because it just can't handle anything more. I'm still here. everything, everything is a triumph my stomach says. everythign I do is proving that I am not worthless, throwaway garbage, nothing like he taught me. I'm still here.


I'm still here.

even if I'm hiding behind cans of peas.


but my brain...it doesn't believe it. and it speaks louder.

clearly I need a lobotomy.