As the title says: I finally took the effort to get back into writing.
Panna and I decided that we'd challenge each other every single week to write something (anything) to a prompt we give each other - and this was my first piece in years.
I thought it would have a good home on my Blog instead of my writing blog, because it's raw and it's personal. It's me. All me.
I don't think outside of Kriszti and me anyone reads this blog anymore, so this feels safe. And if someone does end up here, then please enjoy and take care of yourself, you're worth it!
My writing prompt was: "Nekem táncol a világ"
Four.
Twirl, twirl, twirl
I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror.
I throw myself onto my bum in front of it, giggling. My giggle fades with my curiosity, as I scoot closer to my reflection. My blonde hair is a little sweaty and sticks to my face messily, because I’ve been dancing a lot to the music that’s on in the kitchen. I love spinning! And I love love love the pink dress I’m wearing! My mum made it for me. Mum and dad refer to me as the Princess of Spring when I wear this. It’s twirly, and sways with me as I spin and spin and spin around in our shared room. My hair does the same too. It’s fun.
I imagine myself as the Princess of Spring. Do I have a tiara? I probably do, all princesses have tiaras! I touch my face in the mirror, and I smile. I don’t think I’ve seen myself smile before. Is this when I look pretty? I tilt my head to the side, and giggle to myself once again. The reflection looks back at me, giggling too.
Maybe I could ask my mum to make my long hair curly. Or wavy. Not sure what’s the difference, but I’m pretty sure Spring Princesses have bouncy hair, and mine is straight, just like a ruler. Maybe if I had bouncy hair, I could be a real Princess.
Maybe then I would know I’m pretty.
Twelve.
Twirl, twirl, spin
I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror as I turn around.
My dirty blonde hair is shoulder-length and messy, my face is flushed red from the Croatian heat. We’re about to leave the apartment that served as our home for a week in Vodice. I liked it here, the sea is beautiful, and my mum and dad weren’t fighting as much with me as they do at home.
My reflection stares back at me, and I realise that I haven’t looked at myself in the mirror for a long time… wait, did my face get slimmer? My fingers slide gently onto my red cheeks, and I flash a smile. Like I’m practicing to flash one for a picture. I feel awkward. There are five pimples in the middle of my forehead. They’re new and red and painful and itchy and I popped them all and all I want to do now is scratch them off my face. I don’t like them. I don’t like how I look in the mirror. My cheeks are too red, my nose is too hooked, my eyes sit weirdly, and the PIMPLES. ARE. SO. ITCHY.
“Are you finished?? We should be on the road already!” I hear my mum’s voice from the living room. I can clearly hear that she’s out of patience for today. I wrap up my staring contest with my reflection, but lift my camera to take a quick picture of my face. I saw these “before and after” pictures in the magazines for teenagers - maybe this is my after? I do think my face got slimmer.
I step out of the bathroom hurriedly, and flash a genuinely excited smile at my mum.
“Mum, do you think my face got slimmer?” I ask, thrilled. She looks at my face, more bored and annoyed than I hoped. Her gaze walks up and down my body, and she shrugs.
“I think if anything, you gained weight. When we get home, we will all be going on a diet, and you can start going back to the gym with your dad. You should have eaten less shit on this holiday."
She turns around and leaves the apartment, leaving me there with my thoughts, disappointed. Am I this blind…?
Maybe when I get older, I will see myself clearly. Maybe then there won’t be five fucking pimples bang in the middle of my face. Maybe then my nose won’t be as big. Maybe then I will not eat so much shit on holidays. Maybe then I will be slimmer.
Maybe then I will be pretty.
Fifteen.
Twirl, twirl, spin
I stare at myself in the floor-to-ceiling mirror. My hair is greasy, my workout clothes cling to me in weird places. My body doesn’t seem to be doing what I feel like it should be doing. I hear the instructions to roll my body, and I see my classmate break the body roll down for me in excruciating detail, but when I try it, all I can master is a tired, clumsy wiggle. I feel awkward. I feel incapable. I feel huge. I keep staring at my arms that are too chunky, my thighs that are too thick… and my face that just screams “get me the fuck out of here”.
“Do I really have to dance to Barbie Girl in front of the whole fucking school in some idiotic outfit? Can’t I just skip it?” I cry out, as I turn away from the reflection. Tamara looks back at me, half-pitying, half-understanding.
“It will be fine, it’s just a minute! We’ll think back to this day in five years, and it will be a happy memory!”
I don’t believe Tamara, even though she’s so sweet, and I know that she’s probably right, when it comes to her own feelings about this stupid Kopaszavató. I, for one, have never felt more grossed out about myself in my entire life. I thought I would enjoy at least the dancing part, because I love K-Pop. But I don’t. Even though I really wanted to enjoy dancing. My body feels out of control.
Maybe I should just never dance, I’m shit at it anyway.
Nineteen.
Spin, spin, spin
The world is spinning around me, and I collapse in front of my mirror. I tried so hard to keep it together today, but my hands are shaking, and my legs gave up under me. After all, I haven’t eaten for the last twenty hours, I drank enough to knock a lightweight person out, and I also had to take care of my friend the whole night… who then turned my kindness against me.
I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror… and I lose it. Tears trickle down my cheeks as I survey the damage. I’m in my underwear only, and while the skin below my neck hasn’t seen a moment of sunshine in the past four months, it’s not evenly white anymore. It’s decorated with blue, purple and outright black spots. Some on my neck (fuck, how will I ever cover these up), an entire handprint on my upper arm, and countless bruises on my wrists.
I cry a loud sob and tear my gaze away from my battered reflection, so I can look down on my thighs… that are also covered in colourful prints.
How could I let this happen…? Why didn’t I say stop?
“But I did… I told her to stop” I whisper to myself, as I look up again at my twin, trapped behind the glass. Both her and me look at each other through tears that sting. Tears that blur. My head is throbbing as I can’t tear myself away from the image of my violated, filthy body.
I feel so disconnected.
And I can’t go back into my body.
Not until it’s clean again.
So I hastily get up from the floor, falling back twice from how dazed I am, and I desperately make a run for the bathroom. I turn on the water, and I scrub.
I scrub, and I scrub, and I scrub.
I wash my hair too, because I don’t want any of my body parts to smell like her.
That reminds me that I haven’t yet brushed my teeth, and the thought makes the world spin even more. Stars dance in front of my eyes as my brain casts memories of last night, and how she made me do things I can still taste.
I feel the sour contents of my stomach burn my throat, and I aim to throw up in the sink while I’m in the bathtub, so I wouldn’t need to clean the bathtub, where I intend to scrub myself again and again. More like I try to, because I miss, with half of my vomit.
Jesus fucking Christ.
I get out of the shower, and promptly clean up the mess I made, while I notice that my breathing is fast and shallow, and my heart is about to break my ribs. My hands feel full of pins and needles, and my whole body is sore, yet I’m numb.
How can I hurt so much, yet be so… numb?
As I clean, I realise that the sheets are just as filthy as I am. The thought makes my heart beat even faster, and I sprint into my room naked, dripping, rip the fabric off the bedding, and then toss them into the washing machine with six times the amount of washing gel than I’m supposed to use.
While I’m back in the bathroom, and my body is scrubbed, the vomit is cleaned up, and my sheets are being washed, I finally brush my teeth. Again. And again. Finally, when I spit out more blood than toothpaste, I stop. I look up…
… and I catch another glimpse of myself in the steamy mirror above the sink. My eyes are bloodshot and wet, my face is red and pale at the same time, and I realise that I will never be able to forget the last ten hours of my life.
So I throw up again, brush my teeth again (that amount of blood isn’t normal), and get under the shower to scrub my body again.
And again. And again. And again.
I shower over ten times, first in scorching hot water, and then, as my boiler runs out of the pre-heated hot water, in ice cold, hoping the filth that someone smeared over my body against my will would finally wash away.
But then I realise that the filth she smeared on the inside of me can never be scrubbed away.
I don’t think my body will ever be mine again.
Not after how my body was violated.
Not after I was raped.
Twenty-two
Spin, spin, twirl
I finish putting on my mascara, and I inspect my make-up in the mirror. My eyes are puffy, because I’ve been crying all night again, but my eyeliner looks straight as fuck at least. I hate to see myself in the mirror. I don’t see myself as pretty, or even remotely human these days.
I’m so disconnected from my body, from myself, from my life, that I barely recognise my twin behind the glass. She looks… so neglected. I feel neglected. I only eat junk, fuel my body with eight double shot mochas every day just to get through the sixteen-hour work days, and occasionally go out to drink myself into a panic attack. I barely sleep, and when I do, I cry myself to sleep. My body feels sore and weak, and I still feel numb, just like I felt numb for the past three years of my life.
Today is the third anniversary of that horrendous night I lost all my connection to my body.
This thought brings tears into my eyes again, but I stop myself - my eyeliner is the only good-looking thing on me at the moment, so I can’t cry. I can cry later, once I get home at half past ten tonight, as part of my evening routine.
I take a deep breath instead, and as my tears dry up (so do my poor eyeballs, I should really use some eye drops), I assess my situation.
I’m in a foreign country, now alone, without the person who I came here with. I have superficial friendships, work a job that kills all the joy in me, and I don’t see a way out of it, even though I’ve been applying for better jobs, without any success. I have a family that keeps telling me that I could always go back home, but I don’t think that’s really home anymore - maybe it never really was. I firmly believe all they want is to rub it in, and I can already hear what they would be echoing for years. “See, you moved all the way to London for that stupid girl, was it worth it?” I know they don’t want me to succeed here, so I know I can never move back, because this is my only shot of escaping the abuse and control that flew under the radar for over twenty years of my life. They don’t even know how disconnected I feel, and how I was pretty much eviscerated… or more like skinned alive and turned inside out three years ago by someone I trusted. I couldn’t even tell them that I was raped, yet they claim I still have a home back in Hungary. Can that even be called home if I couldn’t even be vulnerable to share how I was hurt? Is this really what family is…?
I have been trying to find myself, but I don’t even know where to even start looking.
I take another deep breath, and I stare into my own soul through the reflection.
This is the last 1st of December I will ever waste on the bitch that killed the remaining spark in my eyes.
This is the last 1st of December I will ever spend broken.
Twenty-seven.
Twirl, twirl, spin
I can’t not catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror, because that’s the whole point of it. I look at my arms, as they lead to the thick metal bar that my fingers are clutching onto. My arms are so thick…
I shake my head, because that’s exactly why I’m here - to lose weight and take care of my body better. I correct my position, and I lift. I pick up the twenty kilo bar from the ground, with two fifteen kilo plates on each side. I nearly crumble under the weight, but I breathe through it, as my legs straighten, and then I set it down again.
I feel strong. I lift the barbell again, and I set it down again for another ten times. I can lift more now, because this weight feels lighter and lighter with every set.
Just like my soul feels lighter and lighter, day by day. It felt lighter and lighter for the past four years. While I was looking for my own pieces, I found someone who didn’t see me as filthy, fat, or good-for-nothing. She called me beautiful when I felt the ugliest, she lifted me up when I was down, and told me that I was worth the hard work I had to put in to feel whole again.
I found someone who, even through her own broken soul, could help me find pieces of myself. And I could help her find pieces of herself. She was beautiful, she was the light in that thick, nauseating darkness that hugged me tight for most of my life. I have never felt so safe, so loved, and so… alive.
It’s about time I pull myself together now. She deserves me at my best, because she’s always been giving me her best.
I tidy the weights, then I shift my attention to the leg press. I see a number of plates on them - I don’t count them much, there was some guy using it before me, and I know fairly well that I can leg press more than many of the men in the gym, so this seems like a good start either way. I sit down, put my feet wide against the plate, and I push.
It’s not heavy enough.
I stand up to count the weight on the machine, and I tally a whopping two hundred ten kilos. This was my personal best until my last session, and today, I feel like I’m on top of the world.
I throw a ten kilo plate on each side, totalling two hundred and thirty. I sit down again, brace my feet against the plate, and I press.
My legs shake, but I extend them anyway, and lower the machine with all the control I have in my body.
I’m present… I’m here. I’m in control.
I’m finally familiar with where my limits might be, where they stand firm, and where they can be gently pushed.
I have tears in my eyes by the time I finish my set of six, and I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror. I think back to the time I was fifteen, and had to learn that stupid fucking dance for our ninth grade “hazing”. I remember how awkward I felt, how uncomfortable it was to even look at myself in the mirror, and I remember how out of control my body felt.
It feels so far away, so distant.
Maybe this time, if I try dancing again, I will feel my body for the first time in my life.
Twenty-seven
Twirl, spin, twirl
I look at myself in the mirror, and I feel intimidated, but full of adrenaline. While I don’t recognise the body I see, I know that if I get through the next two hours, I will be on my way to a better me.
My moves feel awkward, but I laugh it off. After all, I have never really danced. I wouldn’t count learning a deliberately shitty choreo to Barbie Girl in ninth grade as dancing. I tried to learn some choreographies at home, but with very little luck. This is a controlled environment, and everyone’s learning.
I can see others struggling with the moves as well, and that puts me at ease. I’m not the only person who isn’t in control of their body, and that’s okay. We’re all here to have fun.
And fun, I have.
I feel big as I jump around to the fastest choreo I could have picked, but I’m not out of breath. I have no idea how to spin anymore, because I stopped spinning when the world itself started spinning around me… and that’s okay, because, eventually, just like the world slowed its spin around me, I will learn how to spin happily again.
I look at myself in the mirror. My face is flushed, red, and beaming. My eyes are full of joy. My body feels tired and yet, full of energy.
For the first time in my life, I feel my body. Every bit of it. Even though my muscles hurt so much, it feels amazing.
While everyone records, I’m still a bit shy to take a video of the result of my first official dance class. And that’s okay, there will be another chance to do so. I know I’m coming back.
Because I know this is where I’m meant to be.
I walk twenty-five minutes to my direct train instead of taking the Tube that’s closest to the dance studio, because I’m still full of energy. Walking is an understatement, I’m practically skipping all the way to Paddington, and I sprint down the escalators, smiling to myself.
I don’t think I’ve ever been so happy in my body.
Twenty-nine.
Twirl, twirl, twirl
I finally lock eyes with myself in the mirror. I’ve been waiting for this moment for the past year.
My hair is messy, but it looks shiny and cool. This colour looks good on me, it feels like it’s really mine. I’m wearing a mesh top with only a sports bra underneath - it leaves my belly exposed in some places, and I don’t mind. My leggings feel slightly too big, even though I sized them down when I ordered them. That, I mind, but only because now I’ll need a Medium instead of a Large. I don’t remember when was the last time I wore Medium bottoms. My figure is slimmer, smaller - I’m nineteen kilos down, after all.
This is the very first time I can keep watching myself in the mirror while I dance, without needing to constantly watch the instructor.
I move my body how the instructor taught us in the past ninety minutes. I miss some moves, but it’s okay, I’m still learning. I hear the music, and I know what comes when. It all clicks when we get to trying the full song section at full speed, and I’m giving everything I’ve got.
My body moves exactly how I expect it to move.
I don’t look away from my twin behind the floor-to-ceiling glass. She looks beautiful, cool - a little clumsy… and so much like how I imagine myself now.
I take videos of my progress - not just one, but four. I watch them on my way home. I send the best one to my wife. I even post one on my Instagram story. I’m proud of how I did, and finally, I don’t wish I could be anything or anyone else.
I’m finally home in this world.
I’m home with my wife, I’m home in our house, I’m home in this foreign country.
And I’m home in my own body.
