The day Luyando slit her wrist, she let the water run while she sat in the tab, a comfortable warmth wrapping her in. She did not realize how far the tab had filled till she was neck deep in it. It was a perfect model of how everything had crept up on her, how all the troubles that could ever be had piled up until she was submerged in them, until she could not wiggle one way or the other without tipping over two more problems. Her muscles loosened; her body lightened. But even then, in a recumbent position, she could feel her shoulders slouch, feel her head slump forward. The posture of an exhausted woman, one weighed down by the cruelty of a life that refused to do her any favors.
A soft wind blew in through the open window on the opposite side of the room. For the first time in months, she felt no need to toggle with her thoughts, felt at peace. Perhaps from how calming the elements of nature could be. Perhaps from the knowledge that she would not have to deal with it any longer, that that day would be the last of it.
She left the door ajar. The bathroom stood at the end of the hall so that anyone who walked past the living room would see straight into it. For a while, she hoped that someone would come, that someone would save her, would see her. But no one did come, the same way no one had come for her all this time, same way no one truly saw her pain, saw her gasping for air beneath the weight under which she was crumpled.
She had not told anyone what happened, had not openly spoken about it. Every time she started, her throat dried up and the words drowned in the tears that welled her eyes. So she chose not to start at all. But she still hoped that someone, just one person, would notice the changes in her, would see the sadness run over all her facial features, would see her not being okay.
And tiny pieces fell off her heart every time someone acted normal, acted like nothing had ever happened, every time the world went on the same as it always had. So that day, she placed the sharpest knife she could find on her wrist and caught herself smiling. For the first time in 7 months, she felt like herself again. Or at least like somebody, for she did not know who she was anymore.
It had been 7 months since her skin started crawling, a sticky clamminess running over her whole body until she felt drenched, until it felt like she had been dipped in someone else’s sweat; 7 months since her skin had started to feel like someone else’s, since she began hoping to rid herself of the skin that had been defiled, since it started to feel so filthy that she wished to peel it off and don a new one, so that she scrubbed and scrubbed until red blotches dotted it whenever she took a bath. Her body was a hole from which she wished only to escape.
It had been 6 months since she took a hammer to all the mirrors in the house, since she stopped at breaking the windows only because she could not deal with the mosquitoes that would infest her room, since her stomach churned, and its content threatened to spew out of her mouth at the sight of her body. For her body was disgusting, vile. Why else would someone disrespect it like that?
She had become a stranger to herself all those months ago. She did not recall what she looked like, did not recall her eyes or the smile she wore so brightly. Hers was a face that she forgot that bit more every day, the passing time steadily plucking it out of her memory. She was to herself only an acquaintance, no more than that. Sadness had devoured her, swallowed her whole until it was all she knew, until she could not recognize herself, until she was unknown to herself. She was sadness. Sadness had become her, infiltrating every molecule of her being. She carried it round with her like a purse. And the rude awakening to how cruel the world could be sat its full weight on her back and her shoulders slouched.
She saw the world through a lens of misery. That world was devoid of color, was as gloomy as mid-December. She always thought that she could pick up a brush and splash some color back into her life. But how could she when someone had yanked all the paint tins from her, when her arms were too weak to reach for the little she had left? She had no desire to live in a world as pale as her own. But she did not have the power to change it either. So she soaked and drowned deeper in it instead.
Some contrast this was to the life she had known, she often thought. Just 8 months prior, she was living a life she had never imagined plausible, one that she thought herself undeserving of. And four months later, she stood atop a stool, tightening a rope round her neck, only stopping when her mother’s name flashed on her phone. That night, she cried herself to sleep, crying about either her pain or her cowardice to not be able to kill herself even though she had little to live for.
On the day she walked into a pharmacy to buy the pill, her legs stuck to the ground and her body turned the other way when she got to the door. She could feel her heart in her mouth, could feel herself tire as though she had been pacing about even though she was stuck in place. How bad an idea this might have been bounced from one end of her mind to the other. She wondered then why such a simple act had become so ladened with shame that her feet felt heavy.
“Come in mami,” the woman said from the shop, “how may I help you?”
Luyando wished she could dissipate into the air, wished she were invisible. But she turned her still body and dragged her feet to the counter.
“Hi, how are you?” the lady said, her smile genuine and warm.
“I’m well, thank you,” she lied, “How are you?”
“I’m fine thank you. Did you need something?”
“Yes,” she started. But her throat dried up and the words stuck to the back of it. Her lips moved but nothing came out.
“I know what you need,” said the lady before pulling out the box from beneath the counter. “It’s okay. You don’t have to be shy.”
She appreciated the subtle kindness, appreciated her not prying or making her feel filthier than she already did, appreciated her saying so much by saying very little.
“Thank you,” she said and walked out.
At home, she sat on the toilet, pill in hand, tears rolling down her cheeks. Guilt tugged at her insides, but she knew she could not bring herself to mother a child born of these means. She thought about God. Before the rape, Luyando referred to God as “my God”, as though He were hers to own, as though He was specific to her and only she knew Him the way she did. She spoke with Him as she would a friend, telling Him everything even though she thought He already knew, even though He did not respond in speech. She thanked Him for everything, even the things that seemed little. At random points in the day she said out loud, “I know You see me. I know You love me. You are my God.” She lived as He would have her live, did as He would have her do. She endeavored to never step a foot wrong, to never offend her God, for she thought that He too felt sad when she did, that His heart felt the pain. She did as He said.
It had been days since she tore up her Bible and burnt it with the trash, a month since the last prayer she said, through tears and fits of anger. It’d been month since she told Him she would never forgive Him, that she knew now that everything He said to her had been a lie, that He did not love her. For a loving God, with all the power and might, would not have stood by and watched those men take turns with her, force themselves onto her, into her. A loving God would not have sat and let those men take the very thing He asked her to keep sacred, would not have let them defile His temple. A loving God would have intervened, would have been so angry at people touching His daughter that He would have immediately appeared. A loving God would have had her take a different route that night or would have given her the strength to fight back. But this God stood by and watched; this God heard her loud screams until they subsided when she realized He was not coming, watched her silent tears roll down her cheeks when she gave up fighting and let it happen so that it would be over quickly; this God watched her lie there for 2 hours after they were done, too numb to do anything and still did not come. So she swallowed the pill. This God did not love her.
And in truth, she did not love Him either- or anyone else for that matter. She had no love left to give to. Not of her own accord, but bitterness lodged in the walls of her heart; hatred sat in every cavity of it, darkness sewn in its fabric. Try as she may, no love could come from this heart. And the day she realized that no one truly loved her, she stopped trying. Would love, true love, not have seen her, heard her silent cries? Would true love not have come to the rescue? Was it not a trait of love to hear words unspoken, to see things hidden beneath? How then could anyone claim to love her seeing that they all sat and watched while she drowned within herself? Of what use was she to a world that did not see her?
She felt alone in the world. And when she sat in a room full of people, the fact that no one could perceived her insides bleeding made her feel even lonelier. Rape was not meant to happen to people like her, people who did everything right, people who obeyed God, people who dressed decently, who went to church every Saturday, who prayed earnestly; it was not meant to happen to people who kept to themselves, who lived in their own bubble, hardly ever stepping a foot outside; it was not meant to happen to people who did everything the way it was supposed to be done.
And it angered her that it did happen to her. It angered her that she had been raped, that she let it happen. It infuriated her that she had been convinced that life could work for her, that she would receive good because she put out good. She was embarrassed. Being raped bore a shame within her that wore and tore her apart, one that made it impossible to admit to anyone, even herself. She deserved it for being so naïve in a world that thought she was disposable. It was her fault. And every time she started to tell someone, she believed that they would think the same. So, she swallowed it down until it ate her up from the inside.
On the day Luyando slit her wrist, the bags under eyes weighed a ton. Her head throbbed and her shoulders sagged. Her eyes were vacant, as though nothing lay behind them. Her mouth was bitter, breathing took loads of effort. She was worn. Tired. So, when the tub filled to her neck and she came-to, she closed her eyes, dug the blade into her skin and dragged it across her wrist. A sharp pain. A warm on her skin. Numbness. And then peace. At last, she found a way out of this hole.