You can’t have sex today. It is the first thing you think when you wake up. It is heavy in the linings of your lungs as you stretch in your twin-sized bed closer towards him. Morning has been pouring into the room for hours and it is getting almost too late to stay in bed, but you stay. You are tired.

There’s no reason to keep him around if you can’t have sex with him, if he means nothing. But you argue, trace the bones down towards his wrist, and correct yourself. He means something; you just wish it was less. You curl into what the twin-sized bed has allowed you to call comfortable and his hand rubs up and down your thigh innocent enough for you to stay. Relief lines your lungs now.

He starts to talk and the hand dances, cautions its way across your body. Your stomach flattens, kneads like dough beneath gruff flour-covered hands.  Heavy pushes spreading until your stomach’s a single spinning plate that was meant to break. At the pit, is crab apple anticipation and you tell him you have to get ready for work so you don’t have to tell him you can’t have sex today. It is a long, exaggerated goodbye. You kick him out. You bite your lip in spite because you know you’ve become dependent enough to see him later. You need to get dressed, eat breakfast, brush your hair, you’ve got a lot of things to do and he needs to get a move on. He leaves. You’ve justified him leaving late if it means you’ll go to work on an empty stomach.

You drove to work speeding down winding Ohio roads your car deserved to kiss at lower speeds and snapped your passenger mirror against a mailbox you dipped into. You didn’t stop, turned your music off and drove in silence, numb against the lines you now followed precisely. But you drove back later that day and couldn’t remember which mailbox you hit. You cried that day.

You fell into routine and you think routine ruins humanity.  You came home from work, curled up against him, and slept. Sometimes, you went out to eat. Sometimes, you went to the park. It didn’t matter so long as you weren’t alone.

He combs through your hair with his fingers starting at the scalp because he knows it used to turn you on. He scratches your back and his hands brush in question…can I touch you…will you touch me…what happened? The only thing that stands anymore is your conviction. You can’t have sex today. He holds you despite it all.

Things heal slowly. You think of the cactus plant missing a chunk of its stalk and how it never fully healed after you’d ripped apart its base. You heal slower. That heavy pain of your father and mother getting arrested has been changing. You weren’t dry-heaving in the snow ten minutes before your shift when the keychain your father gave you for Christmas snapped off. You weren’t screaming into your fists in the car before coming in the house. You weren’t as broken. You weren’t crying anymore when your father’s favorite songs came on the radio at work. You were managing. You were struggling. But you were getting up.

You realized then it is harder to get up when people think you must jump up. The world demands you are better than before overnight. People were incapable of granting you the space to fall down.

So, you allowed yourself to slip. Maybe, too far. Everyone commented on your progress or lack of it, so you let yourself go just a little. You are looking at what that means in this moment. So you tell him your truth – you can’t have sex today. Not won’t, can’t. It isn’t about you; It is bigger than you. You respond, “Men are selfish” when he asks if it’s about him. That goes over his head, but he is silent beside you and says okay. You think that’s why you do not love him. You tell him you need to sink to overcome hardships; you need to fall get back up. It resonates but only with you. This is all part of the process.

– Kalie Johnson

Author’s Note:  My father went to jail and my mother followed his leave within a month. Though I am grown now at 23, I felt the tremendous loss of my parents. I felt I was growing up without the tools I needed and without the support I wanted. I filled the void of the loss I felt with intimacy. This piece is about learning how you process pain, in what ways others’ actions affect us, and how you need to fall down in order to rise.