


What moments define us? And what does my defining moment mean to you? It’s fascinating how one person’s trauma is another’s day to day. “You would be perfect at playing the part of yourself”, the producer said. With my long blonde extensions and polka dot dress. Later that night, when my boyfriend asked why my bra strap was undone I said
I don’t know. I don’t remember.
Now I want to reclaim my roots, take back my brunette hair I had dyed since that day because he said how it would need to be brown for an actress and it felt like an act of defiance to fry it in bleach and dip it every color of the rainbow since.
Anything and everything to escape myself, to escape him. But my hair is beautiful, auburn, glinting like a mahogany wooden cabinet, fall leaves with shades of red and gold. I will return to what feels natural to me.
In this photo I have bleached opal hair. I am wearing DJ Bean Queens sunglasses. I pass by a sign for Pennsalvania “where happiness lies”. I am on my way to a tantra retreat. I have just changed therapists, because I know deep down sex work does not feel right to me anymore but I’m desprate for the money.
I feel stupid, really stupid. I never said no. I felt I couldn’t.
And the therapist asks, could it be you were innocent, naive?
He said he was going to make me a star. I was going to be a star. Over and over while he was inside of me. Say the movie will be successful, say you will be famous, I will be famous I will be famous I thought as he plunged into me like a knife and I felt his wrinkly 70 year old hands and I wanted to scream but I didn’t say a word though my body was crawling with fire ants devouring my skin.
“He said I would be famous. He said I was going to be a star” I said softly, drifting down gently from the crime scene at the East London mansion, slipping into my present skin.
“Let’s continue this next session” the therapist replies with her all knowing piercing brown eyes. Can you see into my soul that is not there, the space where it was ripped like Peter Pan’s shadow?
The heroin needles were only a botched attempt to reattach the purity that was stolen like a baby into the night, leaving a wild challenging thing.
I am a woman obsessed. How can I do this explotative thing in a way that doesn’t kill my soul? How can I be the highest functioning trainwreck, the alcoholic who downs vodka but pays rent, the published addict.
I think that is what he warped that night. My pondering not how to function well in a way that feels good organically but how to make a strangled canary sing.