The Un-Spider

[This really did start as a gentle metaphor about the unreliability of memory, and then turned into an unabashed piece about recent recurrence of another purge in a fandom community, and if it’s triggery for me, it might be triggery for you. Triggers? The Satanic Ritual Abuse of the 1980s, sexual trauma, and the fear that we’re not only forgetting some of the useful knowledge of history, but actively unlearning it.

This is about something I have known and lived through, both as hunter and hunted: sexual ‘predator’ purges: their roles, their goals, their possible bad outcomes for all involved. This has nothing to do with any other current events. This is more than enough.]

The un-spider

travels close behind you,

unweaving your memories.

It’s not age,

not in and of itself,

it’s the way we remember things.

memory

is more a construct

than a library,

more a rendering,

a dynamic generation,

than an exactitude.

here is a way to make a memory:

have something happen,

remember it.

here is a way to make a memory:

have someone tell you something happened,

remember it.

here is a way to make a memory:

reconsider something that happened,

remember it.

here is a way the body removes trauma:

we forget.

here is a way the body deals with trauma:

we process.

here is a way the body creates trauma:

we focus on how traumatizing

a thing was, or is, or is and was and still is,

anything.

that’s not to say that we make trauma,

or that we are to “blame” for it.

it is, however, to say that

if you want to build trauma

into someone,

enforce,

as hard as you can,

how traumatic something must have been.

call them brave for enduring it,

call them strong for living through it,

and maybe you mean it,

and maybe they are,

but I had a friend once

who had to inject her grandmother with insulin

every day,

and my friend hated needles,

and we were basically kids,

and I asked,

“How do you deal with

knowing that you’ll

have to do this

every day

and every day

and every day,

or else your grandmother

will die,

and the only way it stops is

if your grandmother does die,

and ‘Nita rounded on me and shouted,

“I don’t think about it,

I don’t think about it,

and I don’t want to think about it,

so drop it,”

and I did.

(did I mention

we were children?

It was a thoughtless thing to ask,

at best,

and I’d like to erase the memory,

and I could.

I could visualize her being grateful that

I asked,

that I cared,

think of a story,

tell it to myself,

you know,

not a lie,

just storytelling,

papering it over,

it was a long time ago,

maybe she just shrugged.

I can remember

a time she smiled;

what if the smile

was that time?

In my youth,

the same youth, actually,

or just shortly before,

we’d just finished a dark time,

a strange time,

in our history,

when therapists began uncovering

the worst possible abuse

you could imagine

in lots and lots of small kids,

whose parents had done unspeakable

things

in Satanic rituals,

things so horrifying

and insane

that they only made sense,

if they were intentionally

as horrifying

and insane

as possible,

if they were offerings

of the worship

of madness

and evil.

if you look it up,

you will see a lot of things.

false memories

implanted memories

dissociative disorders

and, in rare cases,

environments where

children suddenly realized

they had power over adults

if they said certain things.

I’m sorry;

this tale is stuck inside me,

and needs to get halfway out,

needs to get out far enough

to be told,

and then

it sinks deep

into me again,

I recently saw

another community

purged of all of its

abusive monsters,

and I wish I had the ignorance

to think that the people it caught

were monsters,

that they were the only monsters,

that the techniques of belief and hope

were not, at any time,

used by the small population of monsters

to divert attention away from themselves,

and I wish,

I wish to believe

that this is the end

of trauma

for those who hurt,

and not

the beginning

of an endless cycle

of new fears

and new traumas

as new monsters

are found everywhere.

and I’m sorry,

little spider

who unwinds memories;

this was supposed to be a poem

about you,

perhaps a sweet poem,

perhaps a gentle poem,

but then there was screaming,

so much screaming,

and I forgot to remember

you, and forgot to forget

the hurt.

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