Last night was Halloween, and what I learned from it is this
Society is divided-
On one side, there are people who are good people. They speak up in the pretty ways without getting too loud. They stand for some things; usually just the matters that they perceive as affecting their lives closely. They don’t know about violence, not because it isn’t around them, but because they have come however far in their lives without addressing violence with eye contact. They can avoid acknowledging it and so they do. These people have the option to listen to the natural human call for comfort. They only know about lives being in danger by third person re-tellings. These people don’t spend their days considering their presence as being endangered. This lack of urgency allows them to experience minimal fears when being given the opportunity to take action. Their only fear is giving up their luxuries for the cause. They will stick to giving in ways that absolve them of their guilt without having to go terribly far out of their comfort zones. This way, they still get the titles: “caring, helpful, kind”, but they never have to learn about what life is like on the ground of the people they’re helping. They don’t make sure that what is needed gets done, they hide behind the word “boundaries” to avoid reality. A tamer version of this type might only engage in prayer as their good deed. They’ll call it the greatest deed, even, because G-d is the only decision-maker.
They pray to be excused from action.
They are good people.


The other side of society are also good people. These people speak up or act in whatever way necessary for change to happen. They get done what must get done in order to enact change. They don’t have the chance to have enough boundaries. This is due to the many people who overuse their access to boundaries leaving the “in need” party alone in their suffering. The “needy” have to pick up shifts that were too dirty for the dainty-handed to care about.
The people on this side don’t have the option to fight quietly. They have lived in violence and thus they know that one who hits might only ever stop hitting once they are hit harder.
These people know that deescalation cannot always mean forgiveness and negotiation. It can often mean being so scary that the perpetrator has no option but to run away.
Last night was Halloween and I was assaulted in front of the friends I was with. The actions they took following the violence taught me which side of society they exist in. Not that there haven’t been signs for the years i’ve known them pointing out to me their proximity to ease. Selfish of me, in some ways, to ignore what I already knew. There is a world that I have to know, and this is a world that they are comfortable never knowing. They will likely continue to decide to avoid understanding it.
I wont say much more about it; except that I only recently recovered from the physical pain which the attack left me in, and the friend who was next to me when it happened hasn’t ceased behaving like he can fawn his way out of addressing the event in its entirety. While I understand this as a trauma response of his own, when the attacker apologized to me, my friend gently forgave them on my behalf and calmly asked them to walk away.
Spooky as fuck.
It was like bruising me a second time, telling me I wasn’t loved enough to be protected, and teaching me that the assault wasn’t as serious as it actually was- it was all of this at once and I am broken from it.

Since it happened, I have wondered why violence happened to ME, again? What can I wear differently, or say differently?
I keep asking if there’s something wrong with me that has made this happen again.
But then I thank god it was me.

Thank god I will never understand the pretty little response.
Thank god I’m not a fucking wimp.
Thank god I’m not complicit.
Thank god my body has withstood all the violence.
Thank god I have been beat so many times that I am so dangerously unafraid of the consequences that could come from defending.
Thank god that mother fucker is scared to see me again.