I'm reading Singing Songs by Meg Tilly.

First, the similarities between my own life and the novel are uncanny. Even the cut on her finger from cutting cheese. Mine is from cutting an apple. Pressing down hard and then "swap!" right into my knuckle. Bled like crazy.

I'm not cozy reading the book. Not because the subject matter is too emotional or Meg Tilly is a good writer; because it's too close to what happened to me and I just don't want to read it and imagine that my own way of thinking was the same when a teenage boy put his penis in my mouth and told me to lick it like a lollipop. Here I am, wanting to write a book, a memoir about me, and yet I don't want to relive the things I know will hurt. Why do I want to make readers hurt, reading all about the shit that's happened to me and I was just too young to not stop? I've been writing about these things in my journal--yeah. But, I've been writing them in an adult perspective. I haven't used adult words to describe child-feelings. I write from the person I am now about the person I was then and I recognize that I was a victim. Meg Tilly doesn't do that. The children in her story don't realize they are victims. They think of those incidences as moments that made them mad and want to play out small-time revenge on the perpetrators. Revenge in a child-like way: singing very loudly in their faces, for example.

And reading it makes me angry all over again at every person that ever reached for me where they weren't supposed to. Angry that it happens every single day and there isn't one thing that I can do about it. Angry that worse has happened to others and is happening to others.

Jeff was talking to me one day about two months ago about my past. I haven't told him anything. He was just curious about me. He said he could tell I've been through some things, but didn't know what. He said he could see I was strong. I said something to the effect of, "Yeah. Stuff has happened to me, but worse has happened to other people." And he said, "You know: being molested and being raped are the same thing." Pain is pain. Hurt is hurt. I've always made myself feel better by saying, "I wasn't raped or anything, just touched." Just touched.

Oh. Okay then. Nevermind. It's not all that serious.

Right?

I don't want to read anymore and I don't want to investigate my mind and feelings and find out what really happened in those dark places under covers or in the bathtub, and yet I know that I have to. I don't want it lying dormant forever.

I feel tense. Frustrated. Angry. A part of me wants to tell everybody, "Look at this bullshit! Look what people did to me!" and get the sympathy and pity that an eight year old girls deserves for that. But the other part of me says, "Don't take away the sympathy someone else could use. Don't belittle another person's experience by publishing yours and calling it 'bad.' Compared to them, it's not at all 'bad.'" Marketing based on pain.

My college essay spoke to the reader, asking them if they laugh at the people on Donahue or Jerry Springer or Sally Jesse Raphael. I told them to be careful, because they're laughing at me. I've lived some part of all their experiences. It's ridiculous. If a novel were reality TV, I'd be a best seller. I wouldn't need the talent of expression; just the shitty life that guarantees ratings. And I want to be a good WRITER. I don't want my experiences to overshadow that talent. And here I am, reading Meg Tilly, feeling benevolent. I don't want to write about me cause I don't want someone else to feel like, "Jesus! Who was watching this fucking kid!" I don't want them to get angry. Yet that's what a good writer does. A good writer infects the reader. I feel too much. I hurt a lot and I'm starting to accept that I hurt. To write it is one hell of a task.