He asked me:
How are you holding up?

I smirked in his question:
You’re really asking me that? After what you did?
After you forced yourself on me and walked away like nothing happened?

He answered:
…I don’t know what to say.

I spoke:
Of course you don’t.
You never did.
You never said anything that mattered,
Even when you took what you wanted
And left me to hold the pieces of myself in shaking hands.

You left without a trace—
No crumbs.
You ate it all.
Devoured my trust, my voice, my sense of safety,
And walked away like it was nothing.

I added:
People say wounds heal.
That trauma fades like smoke through time.
But when?
Because it still lives rent-free in my mind—even if you don’t think about it at all.
It’s there when I’m brushing my teeth.
In the split second before I fall asleep.
In the silence that follows laughter, reminding me what was taken.

And you once said I ruined your life—how insensitive.
Did you ever think you ruined mine?

I recalled:
I was 15.
Barely a child.
Already depressed.
Already struggling to stay alive.
And you took advantage of that silence.

I wanna describe the feeling,
It was nostalgic to walk down memory lane
without flinching or shaking at recalling
something you wanna forget but your mind does not cooperate

I asked him:
Did I ruin your life?
Are you really saying that to me?
Do you even hear yourself?

You’re trying to make yourself the victim
When you were the one who pinned me down,
Ignored my “no,”
Took away my safety,
And left me in the dark with it.

You say you were young.
You were 23.
A fully grown man.
Sober.
Aware.
Choosing.

You talk about your innocence like you didn’t take mine.
Like you didn’t strip it away with your hands, your weight, your entitlement.

I asked him once more:
Do you know what ruin looks like?

He clapped back this time without holding back:
To answer your question…
Ruin is like sleeping,
But you can’t sleep at all.
Even if you drink yourself unconscious,
It won’t work.
It still finds you.

I objected:
No.
That’s not ruin.
That’s guilt.
That’s the echo of your own making,
And even that—you can escape with liquor, with numbness.

But ruin?
Ruin is when you wake up screaming
Because your body remembers what your mind is still trying to forget.

Ruin is when you flinch at kindness,
Because you’ve learned that even warm hands can burn.

Ruin is carrying your own body like a secret.
Like a crime scene.
Like a war was fought there,
And no one came to clean up the blood.

That is what ruin looks like.
And it lives inside me.
Not in your glass.
Not in your hangover.
In me.

Ruin is learning to flinch at the smallest sounds,
the lightest touch.
The unexpected movement of someone walking too close.

Ruin is hating myself for years.
Feeling insecure with who I am,
Guilty for what I let happen—
As if being naïve was a crime.
As if freezing instead of screaming meant consent.
As if my silence signed away my right to be safe.

I was just a girl.
Trusting. Vulnerable. Too young to even know the danger.
And you used that.
You knew I wouldn’t fight back.
Because I was already fighting everything else.

Ruin is sitting alone on the bathroom floor,
Clutching myself,
Trying to feel real.
Trying to feel clean.

Ruin is carrying shame in my bones
While you walk away, living your life,
Claiming you were the one who got hurt.

Ruin is a fifteen-year-old girl,
grounded, wings clipped to be broken not bound to fly
like a penguin, have flippers but felt useless
with broken dreams, felt caged and has limited movements

You said I ruined your life.

I did not ruin your life.
I am not the type of person to ruin a ruined person.
before I ruined you, you are already bound to be ruined
you caved in, you hid from me
ran away, you even teamed up with a priest to tolerate the **** you did

He was a boy. not a man. One thing I know is, boys tolerate ***** like their ****** life. Men ruin.
like Pompeii, you are bound to crumble and collapse


But did people look at you like you were tainted?
Did they whisper behind your back, tearing apart your dignity?

Did you have to teach yourself how to be touched again without shaking?
Did you have to pretend to be okay while dying inside?

You don’t get to say I ruined your life.
You don’t get to twist what you did into something about you.

He protested:
I… I didn’t realize it affected you like that.

Without a doubt, I said:
Because you didn’t care enough to think about it.
I spent years thinking I owed you an apology.
That maybe I led you on.
That maybe I was too quiet.
That maybe it was my fault for not screaming louder.
For freezing instead of fighting.

But no.

I don’t owe you anything.
Not anymore.

I wrote 500 poems just to keep myself alive.
To let people see my wound through words.
Because it was the only way I could keep breathing
Without collapsing under the weight of what you did.

He apologized:
I’m sorry.

I said in a monotone voice:
Your “sorry” won’t give me back what you took.
It won’t erase the fear.
The shame.
The years of trying to scrub myself clean.
It won’t give me back the parts of myself
That shattered under the weight of your choices.

Your “sorry” won’t let me go back
To the child I was
Before you decided your desire was more important than my humanity.

But I need you to understand something:

You don’t own me anymore.

You don’t get to haunt my dreams,
Poison my mornings,
Make me hate the reflection in the mirror.

You don’t get to take any more of my life than you already have.

You asked me how I’m holding up?

I’m holding up
By reclaiming every part of myself you tried to break.
By reminding myself every single day
That what you did was never my fault.

I’m holding up
By writing my way back to life,
One poem at a time.
One breath at a time.
Even when it hurts.
Even when it feels impossible.

I’m holding up
By living,
Even on the days the memories try to pull me under.
By laughing.
By creating.
By loving people who deserve my love.

By refusing to be silent about what you did.

You may have hurt me.
But you do not get to destroy me.
You do not get to end me.

I am still here.
Breathing.
Healing.
Rising.

That’s how I’m holding up.

A moment of silence.

Then, I speak again:

You know, old wounds never really heal.
Skin deep, they close—
But underneath?
They’re still bleeding.
Quietly.
Silently.

They ache
When the weather changes.
When the world gets quiet.
When a certain smell or a voice
Drags me back to that day.

You see me laughing now,
Building a life,
Writing my poems,
Showing up for people who need me—
But you don’t see what it took just to get out of bed some mornings.

You don’t see
How I clutch the sink when the memories hit out of nowhere.
How I have to remind myself that I’m safe now,
That you can’t touch me anymore.

You don’t see
How I’m still stitching myself back together.
Threadbare in places you’ll never see.

You don’t hear the whispers I say to the child you hurt:
You are safe now.
You are allowed to take up space.
It was never your fault.

You don’t see
How I survived you—
Even when I didn’t want to.

You asked me how I’m holding up.

I’m holding up
By breathing through the days I feel like I’m drowning.
By writing 500 poems
To remind myself that my voice
Is stronger than the silence
You tried to bury me in.

I’m holding up
By loving myself
In the ways you never could,
In the ways you never wanted me to.

By letting the wound breathe.
Not hiding it—
But honoring it
For what it is:
Proof that I am still here.
That I am still alive.

So yes,
Old wounds never really heal.
They stay,
Like a faint echo.
Like a scar under skin.

But I’m learning to live with it.
To hold it
Without letting it drown me.

I am still here.

And you don’t get to take that from me.

A pause. I look you in the eye.

I asked him this time:
Tell me something.

Why did you do it?

Because it was easier?
Because I was there?
Because I was depressed, quiet, vulnerable—
And you knew I wouldn’t fight back?

Because I looked tired of life,
And you thought I wouldn’t tell?
That no one would believe me?

Was it worth it to you?
Taking from a 15-year-old girl,
Leaving her to break herself apart
While you went on with your life, untouched?

Tell me.
Why did you do it?

Without hesitations, you held your breath and answered it:
Because you were easier to capture,
Easier to fool,
Naive enough to follow.

You:
So it was about power.
Not desire.
Not accident.
Not confusion.

You picked me
Because I was small enough to silence.
Because I didn’t know how to scream yet.

You fed on what made me soft—
Turned my quiet into consent,
My loneliness into opportunity.

You knew exactly what you were doing.
And you’re still trying to call it a strategy
Instead of a crime.

But I am no longer quiet.
And you don’t get to name it anymore.
I do.
And I name it ****.

for the longest time, I thought my rival in this fiasco was Medusa, but I was wrong.
I was like her too. Misunderstood. Judged. My reasons weren't heard.
easy for everyone to say, quick for everyone to judge
coins have two sides, so is the truth too. it is not always one sided.
Like smoke, it cannot be consumed. it comes out on its own.

He did not make a sound. He just smirked and keep his head low.

I was so angry at myself. so angry that I did not tell a single soul about it. afraid you will haunt me and **** me.
I forgot I was the predator but never the prey.

He said in a low monotone voice:
“…I know.”
(He bows his head, unable to meet your eyes.)
“You’re right.”

I smirked and continued...

There’s nothing you can say to fix it.
This isn’t about you finding peace.
This is about me finding mine.

You asked me how I’m holding up?

I’m holding up
By speaking.
By facing you.
By refusing to carry what you did
In silence anymore.

And now—
I am holding up
By letting you carry the truth, too.

I said calm, firm:
You know, I forgave you.

Not because you asked me to.
You never really did.

Not because you deserve it.
Not because it erases what you did.

But because I owe myself an apology for that day too.

I spent years thinking it was my fault.
That I was weak.
That I should have screamed louder.
That I caused it.
That my naïveté invited it.

But I didn’t.
I was 15.
I froze because I was terrified.
Because I was a child.
Because that was the only way my body knew how to survive.

I forgive you
Not to free you—
But to free me.

So I can breathe
Without your shadow choking me.
So I can live a life that is mine,
Not something you get to own forever
Because of one choice you made.

You will live with what you did.
Whether it haunts you or not is your burden.

But I will live with what I choose now:

I choose freedom.
I choose peace—
Even if it comes slowly.
Even if I have to remind myself every day
That I am allowed to have it.

I forgive you
Because I am reclaiming the power
You tried to take from me.

And I am done
Letting you define who I am.

I am still here.

That’s how I’m holding up.

I didn’t notice at first—
how the paper darkened
whenever my mind did.

How my hand obeyed the ghosts in my head,
spilling ink I never meant to pour,
turning every sketch into a dismembered memory
I could not bury.

I told myself,
“It’s just art.”

As I painted a black silhouette,
rope tight around the neck,
calling it “expression,”
but my mind whispered,
“This is how you feel.”

Tell me—
what kind of art strangles you
while you’re still alive?

I drew her lipstick smudged,
eyes screaming for help,
and said, “It’s just a concept,”
but it was me, wasn’t it?

Mascara running at 3 A.M.,
the mirror whispering,
“Wipe it off before they see you’re breaking.”

I painted limbs cut, bones broken,
stuffed her into a bag on the canvas,
called it “creative,”
but it was me, wasn’t it?

Chopping parts of myself
to fit into spaces I don’t belong,
breaking what won’t bend,
silencing screams in the back of my throat.

And when I toast to a goblet,
pour another bottle before bed,
I tell myself, “I’m just tired.”

But the wine is the only one listening,
nodding back in crimson reflections,
never telling me, “Don’t think like that,”
only hushing me to sleep
when I whisper, “I can’t do this anymore.”

I wish I could read between the lines,
match the types, connect the dots,
but I am the lines, the dots,
the smudges on every page I touch,
the type they skip over,
the dot they miss,
the line they don’t read.

So I draw my pain,
sing my sorrow,
dance with ghosts that cling to my ankles,
spin for them—
round and round and round,
until I’m dizzy enough to forget,
because it’s the only way I know how to breathe.

Funny thing is—
the saddest people give the best advice.
They know what to say,
they know the words you crave,
because they crave them too.

They don’t know I say those words
because I wish someone would say them to me.

So when you thank me for saving you,
remember: I was talking to myself.
Telling me to hold on, to breathe, to stay.

My art is not just art.
It’s a confession,
a silent scream hidden in brush strokes,
in shadows,
in black silhouettes.

It is a dismembered memory
on canvas, begging to be remembered,
begging to be seen.

And maybe—
just maybe—
one day,
someone will look at what I’ve drawn
and say, “I see you.”

And I will know,
I am not alone.