Once upon a time, you couldn't hurt a princess. In the beginning I pretended I didn't, but To the man who sneaks in and calls me his princess, I know it's you. I recognize your hands, your breath, your arms, and your noises. But you must know that I do. Your hands―the ones around my throat that tie those knots around my wrists at night― The same that I watch pack my lunch in the morning. Your breath―the first thing I hear when you hover near my ear, biting my neck at night― The same that pants after a flight of stairs and smells of garlic. Your arms―the heavy weights on my legs at night― The same that Sis and I clung onto as a little girls. And your noises―the groans and moans and spine-tingling whispers I hear at night― The same that come from Mommy's bedroom on the weekends. I know who you are, Yet I'm a good Daddy's princess and try not to squeal; I sit politely at family meals, like a real princess would. I never complain about the stains on my sheets or gowns, Or ask questions about our nightly interactions. I'm a good little secret-keeper; I never say a word. I'm a great actress too. As you know, I can play pretend. But pretending to forget is easier than pretending to not feel pain. Pain is the body's message to the mind that something is wrong. So it's hard to pretend that I can't feel you stuff yourself inside me. It takes years of skill. But I've been practicing since the beginning. I pretend at school, too. We talk about boys and imagine they've just invited us to the ball, like we're real princesses just waiting for a prince to sweep us off our feet. And with Coach Harry, too, at tennis practice: I always ask him for Band-Aids for the burns on my knees, Claiming I took another fall. I pretend with Dr. Henry, too. I pretend it's opposite day whenever I see him and his notebook of scribbles: I tell him I'm happy, I'm eating well; the family is great, that nobody's touched me, that Daddy is kind, and that I have no fears. Dr. Henry is pretty bad at playing opposite day, so I keep the score to myself. We eat dinner as a family, and Mommy goes to bed early since she has to wake up at 5 in the morning. And then Sis goes to her room and gets ready for bed. I do too, but I don't fall asleep straight away, I lie awake and wait for you to come. I know you're coming soon, And so does the man in the moon that looks through my window. I keep one eye attending to the door, Hoping that maybe, just maybe you don't need me anymore. But my hope dissipates into brittle pieces Like flaming acrylic disintegrating into ash. The instant my auditory cortex notices the door creek; It launches the threat straight to my amygdala. My sympathetic nervous system ignites, sending a surge of fiery-hot energy to my extremities. My breath gets heavy and goose bumps blanket my body. My heart starts racing and my legs twitch as fast as the twinkling stars in the sky. I know what's coming next, so my body tells me to scream. But I fight the instinct because I don't want Daddy to get mean. I watch you inch past the doorway with the roll of adhesive dangling like a bracelet on your wrist. We've done this too many times; you know me too well and expect that I'll yell; You can't risk me waking Big Sis. I hear the tape tear slowly, like my innocence you incrementally unthread from my body. I watch your hands guide it to my mouth. I suck in my lips so when you rip it off it won't hurt as bad. I close my eyes and start to pretend That you hadn't just created a story where the princess can't live happily ever after in the end. _ Please forgive me, little Sis. I really thought he just did it to me Or that Mommy was right; it was just a bad dream, even the screams. But one night he never came in, and I got up to see him skulk into your room. I saw his hands around your neck, your mouth clapped shut with the tape he used to use when I was bad, and your body thrashing into the sheets. That night I knew it wasn't just me and my dreams. And I wasn't his only favorite little girl. You were too. It suddenly all made sense… …the bug bites on your neck…. …the rug burns… .…your wobbly walk…. …your peeling lips… …the thick slices around your wrists… Your body looked like mine from when I used to resist. Those nights he didn't come in I told myself he was over it; that the nightmares were over; he'd had enough. But he hadn't. And I should have listened to Mommy when she said “dreams are too good to be true.” Because I could have saved you. I knew it was Daddy when I felt his studded wedding ring go inside me And when he made a mess and shuffled anxiously to my closet for that stained, crinkled dress. I just didn't know he went to your room next. I'm so sorry that I was too afraid to confess. You don't have to pretend anymore. You don't have to hide anymore. You're safe. We will write our own fairy tale ending― one where the bad guy doesn't win.

~~Her eyes glance to the SonyPMW that glares a red LED light. She exaggerates a moan as her bottom lip tucks under her bite. 5-digit imprints begin to welt and ecchymosis starts to surface. He thrashes her body into the Kingsdown cushion.~~ My body hosts a habitat for not just one, but two. Beyond my classic blonde ringlets and wide blue eyes lurks a predator. I call her Vixen. She is a lecherous creature infested in my mind. I cannot rid her. We share the same body, but she deludes my cognition. She is the entity of our illness that resides in our ventral striatum. The conflict between us does not cease until I swallow the colored beads engraved with a systematic arrangement of numerical and alphabetical configurations and close my eyes. My mind disintegrates into a trance. Peace―finally, until REM generates its own unconscious version of Vixen, for Vixen has no regard for serenity. In fact, she preys on calmness. I have wild conversations and battles with voices in my head. The relationship among us is hardly fathomable. The only means I have to express the delusion and insanity that unfolds inside my cranium is through abstract metaphors. And even then, oftentimes I lose myself in the psychobabble and pronouns. There are too many identities. Is my nonsense merely a figment of my distorted reality, or is it true? I don't know. I am not her. She is not me. We drive the same car and run on the same fuel, but there is only one wheel. For some months she used her bondage to leave me tied and helpless in the trunk. Vixen drove me down unpaved roads and scuffed our tires. I persisted to plead for a break, but one of Vixen's chief qualities is her apathy. After months of intense therapy and rehab, I finally escaped the trunk. I shifted from the passenger and back seats, contingent on how much time could elapse before the car required a refuel. After innumerous efforts to achieve 30-day abstinence, Vixen took the passenger seat. I hesitated to touch the wheel―afraid I would wreck both of us. I had not forgotten how to drive, but I forgot the traffic rules. Simple guiding principles like stoplights were difficult to realign myself to conform to. The only light in Vixen's world signaled “go;” even red meant “keep going”. It seemed unnatural to stop and “yield” did not exist in Vixen's vocabulary. My folly was a recipe for relapse. Lest our psychosis lost you, allow me to elaborate. I am a recovering sex addict. In order to grasp a clue at who controls my behaviors, I compartmentalize. As such, I personified the part of my mind that is plagued with an illness. She, Vixen, is like an escape artist. She's mastered the skills to escape what is real and deny what is true. She abducts our body into her alternative universe and I return with black and blue and welted evidence of our travels. My unadulterated self is impaired with shame and disgust. I see Vixen's graffiti plastered on my body's canvas and it reminds me of her grueling obsessions and masochism. Not that I would ever desire to, but even if forced, I could never escape to the places Vixen is so familiar with. It is her realm, not mine. Thus, I struggle with dissonance and impulses on a daily basis. Dissonance is a frustrating state that devours my energy and cognition. Denial worms its way into my head despite my efforts to banish it. Rationalization, minimization, ritualization, manipulation and crazy-making are only a handful of potent enablers. The constant questions of “who” and “what” confuse even the simplest of ideas, hence the medication to keep me functional―if you would even call us that. Despite failures, I can now intellectualize my behaviors, but whether that belongs on my excuse list or my sobriety strategies: I do not know. But I do understand that ignoring Vixen only intensifies her outbursts, like the one I endured prior to my first lapse―the prerequisite to a relapse: Salty, fiery tears streamed down my cheeks and collected in a damp puddle underneath my bed. I clung onto the metal framework, hiding from voices that echoed off the innards of my skull. White noise screeched in the background like nails on a chalkboard. I am amazed that my neck did not snap while I tucked my head into myself like an isopod crustacean. I gasped for air as if I were being water-boarded by my own tears. I felt like an ant being tortured under a scorching microscopic light with malicious eyes watching its every movement. I could not help but wonder if death was the only escape. My fingers type anxiously as I complete this work. I have so many voices to speak for, but such little language to communicate with. Delusion skews my vision of reality. As I prepare to close my thoughts, Vixen insists to secure the last word, but no. Patrick Carnes' are the words I want to conclude my piece. “Addiction is an illness of escape….it cripples the core ability to know what is real because…rationalizations and delusions make it impossible to cope with details.”