oliviaelliotwriting

[oliviaelliotwriting]

one. two. three…delicate lines carved into a pale pink thigh. Sharp and neat and still too clean for the filth and disgust that clings to her mind. The burn from his touch overpowering the sting of fresh wounds. The stain of dark  wells up, quivering with each calculated exhale. 

one. two. Three…she counts between her breaths. Finally the barrier is breached, rivulets streak the curve, soaking into the towel beneath. Still *too* neat. she swipes her fingers, smearing vermillion into an abstract self portrait. She digs into the flesh with nails still painted to match that lilac gauze. Chipped and cracked and broken. So much changed. So much lost. 

“What do you mean he broke up with you? I thought you two were in love?” Spools of golden silk fan across the lush of green. Jules is sprawled in the yard, bright emerald pools focused on the robins egg sky. She’s uncaring of the breeze that shifts her skirt. unflinching from the sun baking her pale skin tinted pink. unbothered at the frenzied crawl of an ant up her leg. 

Olivia, protected beneath the shade of a tree, knees pulled to her chest, tears at the blades of grass near her hip. Each pluck of her fingers rips the greenery up at the root. She breathed violence now. With a cheek pressed to the steeple of legs, O avoids looking at her little sister. Avoids answering the question. 

Jules has taken Olivia’s silence as permission to continue. “Momma said it’s because you had sex with him at prom.” She doesn’t mean to wound her sister. It’s an unintentional stab. “She said, now that he’d gotten the milk for free, why would he buy the cow? I don’t even know what that means. What does a cow have to do with anything?” Olivia rolls her eyes, still silent, willing Jules to shut up. “She called you a –.”   

Higher up, flesh that would stay hidden beneath summer shorts, her shaking fingers are set to work again. Slick with blood her grip slips, she has to regain her hold repeatedly. Her cheeks are stained with angry tears. Broken tears. Shame filled tears. 

The pain is different. Sharper. Angier. It feels like a release. And when she drops the razor, coated in red, a quivering, sob lined exhaled bubbles past lips chewed raw. Lines of red streak down her thigh, soaking white cotton pink. Olivia sniffs around her tears and smears fingerprints across. This time her carving is anything but neat. Those four little letters jagged, crooked, LOUD against porcelain. 

S L U T

[oliviaelliotwriting]

It wasn’t violent like you would expect. 

“It’s nice, right?” Olivia turns to face him, her smile tight and forced. She feels overdressed in her lilac prom dress, gauzy chiffon floating around her bird-like form, sparkles in her hair. It was meant to be ethereal, instead it looks like a costume, and her side itches when the zipper pinches pink skin.The motel room is straight from the 70’s, he couldn’t even splurge on the Hotel Six down the road. The walls are an unnatural yellow, stained from years of cigarette smoke and a hideous floral pattern makes up the bedspread and chair in the corner. It smelled like it was from the 70’s. “It’s perfect.” She lies.   

There was no screaming, or hitting.  There was no threatening, no weapons.  There was no stranger in a dark alleyway. 

 It was her boyfriend. Mattress spring’s creek beneath their weight, as she’s guided up the bed. He had busted the zipper, that pinch was no longer there. “It’s fine…just slow down,” she had whispered, words smothered with the press of his lips. He tasted like punch and vodka. He smelled like sweat and axe body spray. He doesn’t listen, he never did. There’s the sound of ripping as the skirt is pushed up her thighs, and he wedges his way into the spread of them. Ignoring the obvious resistance when he digs at the shield of lace, and the sharp cry from the slice of pain through her middle. “Stop.” Nothing happens. It’s quiet, except for his grunts and whispered praise. She tries again, hands pushing at his broad shoulders.  “Will, stop-”  Lipstick smears beneath his palm, wrists gathered in the other. She falls still, tears of mascara streaking her cheeks. 

It wasn’t violent.