years ago, when I first got to bard college at the age of 17, my first year I lived at South Hall. I got to be very good friends with the black community who were many who lived there, besides three celebrity kids. no name dropping here. I was terrified and overwhelmed to be new in the middle of the winter new semester. I started from high school and a few weeks later I was a college student. in a country that I learned quick —was dangerous after the sheltered life of the Netherlands.
I spent lots of time on my own. Mostly reading my philosophy books and walking to the Hudson River. The campass, I’d place among is the most beautiful places in New York. It was a religious seminary college for priests originally; no women allowed. It’s just on the edge of ivy legue. A room dedicated to Hannah Arent for obvious reasons. even now there’s Neil Gaimen to add to its history.
It’s intimidating to walk those grounds. I was always getting lost my first year. And the winters were brutal getting to classes, running across compass over icy paths and steep snowy hills. But I made a friend my first year. He was from the Bronx and yes, he was black. We got to be close. We shared our childhood stories about abuse by a parent. He was studying to be a psychologist. So we talked with great depth about all this. He told me that if I ever needed protection from anyone at school, he was my body guard. I found his tough New York accent interesting. But he was kind and respectful to me.
Across the parking lot from South Hall there was a gym. I believe it is still there. That was where the basketball team practiced. Bard basketball teams are a big deal and he was the star player.
I liked to go to the gym because they had a universal. Always a fitness neurotic, even then. I’d go and work out and watch them practice. Those were really nice days. I really liked those easy days when we were friends. But, you see, this was the friend who raped me. One day out of nowhere he banged on my door and —tortured me until I died as he raped me.
I am such a complicated and rather fucked up person.and was at “go”— that family alone; incest and abuse behind a fake happy house.
and he knew that. we were that close; so, it’s weird and very fucked up how it happened. why should I let anyone near me anymore—you know? we weren’t friends anymore after that. obviously. and for years I was too stunned and traumatized to leave the house .
years.
do you know? I have felt sorry for him. to have the guilt of this on him. and I thought this as it occurred —I am not in the mood to write about the death experience; meeting God—but, I can safely say that his guilt is noted regardless if I never blew the whistle
the purpose I write this —is to say something about facing any monster
why did he do it to me if we were friends? they say rape is nothing to do with sex. Bullshit.
my complexities are as such that I have risen from the grave from horror but risen from many other things.i think he did it because he believed he was not good enough for me. Even as he never showed interest towards me this way beyond mild flirtation. For him I represented a repression and he decided to take out on me. His repressed sexual thoughts of me turned to rage. And because my mother’s husband paid him to do favors for him, this was another kind of repression.
The beauty of all this is that I’m the wrong focus. I’m the last person he should feel any rage for.
It blows my mind how he turned to the Hulk from the kind body guard I knew.
My thoughts on S and M?
Non consensual consensual
?
violence to women ?I believe there are things people need to work out;but, dudes: Women’s Lives Matter and fuck you if you think yours matter more or that you’ve the natural right to decide what is good for everybody; fuck that —but I’m not afraid of anyone’s madness (how can I be when I myself am mad?)….if they are willing to work ….through the darkness. I’d be the one holding the light even with all the thrashing because it would lead the way back to the self
****
and of that college ex friend?
you may wonder, would I forgive him?
if he could look me in the eye and say “I’m sorry” and know contrition
yes
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