Chama

Christine No

There is a word in my language: Chama. It is an imperative and an imploration. It means "be patient" in the utmost sense: hold it in, push it down, repress it. It means take it, bear it. Do not react. A good woman is obedient. Chama, chama — my grandmother's two hands press down on her solar plexus. Tsk! Chama, when I tell her, the first time, that my stepfather touches me down there.

Chama — because you are a woman.

Chama — because women bear the whole wet world.

Chama — why are you surprised?

This is why we exist: as vessel, as repository —

I grew up in a violent, abusive household — like classic, like textbook.

My stepfather was (is) an alcoholic narcissist (calls himself Zen Buddhist, Poet, Philosopher).

He once held a knife to —

He came into my room many nights and —

This went on for over a decade. I grew up in constant fear of —

And I tried to break the rule. I did not stay silent. I did not chama.

I was not prepared for the repercussions:

My mother told me, Watch your mouth! Sent me away for three months.

My aunt said she'd pray for me.

My grandmother murmured chama, chama, chama when I appeared at her door — scraped, bruised, hysterical with disbelief.

What else did they know to do?

It has taken me a long time to come to this answer: nothing.

They were raised to abide by the same rules.

I've spent years on concrete floors, in motel bathrooms, trying to smash, snort, slice through my body and cut out my heart — to purge myself of chama. This singular phrase kept my mother in bed for days, practically comatose — eyes wide, unblinking fish, belly-up. Or she would disappear for weeks away at a time; pulling lever after slot machine lever — hoping for a miracle.

Chama landed me in psychiatric care: no shoes and a flimsy gown. Shattered glass girl; weakling, so ashamed. I named my broken vessel Chama. I named my stuffed animal, my ugly feelings, Chama. What facilities are we given to cope with so much abuse, such violence, other than a mouth trained to keep shut? A heart disciplined to take it, because —

This is why I write.

This is why I mine old wounds and leave fresh scars. This is why I speak up about abuse, why I participate. This is why I tell my story over and over again, even though it leaves me emptied, each time. I tell my story in order to live.

When kept quiet, unaddressed, domestic abuse perpetuates like brushfire; manifests in new faces, new generations. We entangle ourselves in partners who will do what our stepfathers did.

After all, this is how we learned to touch and be touched —

I know too many survivors who have had to chama, still do. After all, the further embedded a stake, a coping mechanism, a broken mantra, the more excruciating it is to find and remove, unlearn.

But here you are, elbow deep in your own wounds; careful not to break further your tender self.

And here you are — fighting to heal. How brave you are.

Keep Going. You are not alone. You are not invisible.

I see ya —

As far as I am concerned, there is no chama. There is no need to hide a chasm behind a smile, no need to turn rage inward, anymore. What happened to me is not my fault. That it kept happening is not my fault. That I loved men who repeated these patterns is not my fault. It has taken me nearly two decades of chama to learn these lessons, to break away from toxic unions, to unbreak my heart. But I did it.

I broke the cycle.

Should I have a little girl, she will never have to chama in the face of violence. She will never sleep in a closet. She will never remember her mother as a fish, belly-up, look in her eyes far away gone.

And if anyone tries to hurt her, silence her, they will have her mother — I am a Destroyer of Worlds — to get through, first.

And believe me, I will have questions —

And whoever messes with my Baby Girl

— they'd better have answers.

Explicit Violence

Lidia Yuknavitch

In a bar, with friends, listening to a man I've admired for years saying this: "Enough with the sob stories, ladies. We get it. If I hear one more story about some fucked up sad violent shit that happened to you, I'm going to walk. You win! You win the sad shit happened to me award! On behalf of my gender, I decree: we suck!" Laughter. The clinking of glasses. Again, the secret crack in my heart. Stop telling.

The first time I saw my father's specific sadistic brutality manifest in physical terms, I was four. My sister was flopped across his lap, bare bottom. He hit her thirteen times with his leather belt. I counted. That's all I was old enough to do. It took a very long time. She was twelve and had the beginning of boobs. I was in the bedroom down the hall, peeking out from a...