Love Lies In Solitude
Relearning self-love and intimacy in the wake of abuse.
Written By: Halima McDoom
Illustration: Thomas James Morgan
On the day that I met him, the sun scorched through the sky in a furious rage. Union Square was under siege by the usual throng and congestion of people. The street-side vendors were selling fresh, cubed mangoes amongst packaged incense and sundry literature. Teenagers set foot atop skateboards, and floated into the sea of anonymity with a freedom that I could only vaguely remember. Parents cupped the flushed faces of their children in sweaty palms assuring them that the sun would be more forgiving, as the evening's rainfall would bring promise and catapult New York into a cool slumber.
As I turned the corner his fingers grazed the back of my arm. Under the piercing glare of an endless sky I met a boy whose moon-shaped smile crumbled me into nothing more than a girl in love. His figure was willowy. His free-forms exhibited a display of upended gravity, and the glint of a thousand quartz seemed to dance in the brown of his eyes. He was beautifully haunting. As one hand held the flat bars of his mint green bicycle, the other seemed to stretch across the span of galaxies to shake mine. Air caught in the back of my throat, and I gave him my name in a whispered hush. I took his, along with the multitude of compliments and feigned desire that made me go all red in the face. The brevity and sweetness of that encounter were incomparable to the intentions we had for each other. His was to burn, smolder and catch fire with an internalized love that normalized, if not honored, infidelity, control and abuse. Mine was to love him in the language that my mother taught me; a tongue that knew sacrifice, boundless compromise and truth. That was how I received him and, with an unbending faith in God and love, exactly how I would let him go a year and a half later.
““...in loving the wrong person for all the right reasons, I allowed brokenness to build a refuge in my body.””
I often reminisce on the events trailing to a love that nearly killed me. The crux is not in escaping an abusive and manipulative relationship, but rather is in the weakness that kept me there. For almost two years, I bore witness to my own disappearing act; violent and unforgiving. I allowed for my response to dishonesty and narcissism to be groomed by weightless promises and intimacy. The health of his pleasure depended on the dishonoring of my own consent and body. I became a muse for his temperament, bruised in thick swashes of purple and black, until I forgot my own name. Under silver moons, I endured it all. In the face of his potential and for the pursuit of a faithless love, I left no fertile ground for myself to bloom. The thought of solitude shook me into a paralysis; I became fearful of being without, somehow half of who I was, and unimportant. I became as real and desirable as someone else allowed me to be.
The tragedy is that in loving the wrong person for all the right reasons, I allowed brokenness to build a refuge in my body. I began to love out of obligation, and never by choice, thus rendering all relationships a thankless service. I watched myself burn, shrink and crumble because of time spent and energy invested. I stayed because I believed a body that bends as the container for another man's pain is not worth saving; It cannot be loved again. As guilt and shame stuck to the roof of my mouth like sweet caramel, running sugar spells down the curvature of my bones, and finally settling at the floor of my belly I believed this to be true. The former convinced me that it was my fault, and the latter kept me silent. Nevertheless, God string-tied faith to my wrists and lifted me up with a graceful truth. Recovery is not a linear path, but reclaiming power begins in naming the forces that attempt to destroy you.
Read more like this in The Love Issue of our Journal
The Love Issue explores what love looks like in action. It expands our definition of the famous four-letter word, in ways both traditional and untraditional.
On days like today, when the sun hangs in the sky like an orange globe, I split fragments of breath and awe over the spectacle of my own survival. I overcame trauma when my pursuit of love untethered itself to the desirability of being in a relationship, and became a pursuit of myself. In a society that is motivated by egocentricity, capitalism and ephemeral pleasures, it is so easy to commodify and distort what it means to love yourself and others. I've unlearned so much of what the world teaches us in regards to intimacy and my wellness. Self-love transcends market appeal and external validations; its true revolution lies in its impalpability. It is an act of pure revolution to find love within the comfort of your own solitude. For it is only in waking up alone that you become whole again, and it is in prayer that you spin melodies of testimony and brutal nerve. It is in choosing to love yourself that you soar above all things murderous and unholy.
