I no longer care if you think I'm a bitch.

I used to. Because my survival depended on your approval; and I was desperate for that. Well, not your's exactly, but in the midst of being taught that not only, must I submit, but that I would be overpowered and taken with or without submission, my brain, in a trauma induced, dissociative fog, struggled to differentiate between you and my abusers. Which (by the way) is no easy task, when you have been brainwashed from birth not to know you are being abused... So I smiled for you, as a reflex, supposing it was my duty to you. Supposing that I owed you something. That you had an innate masculine right to my smile, my space, my body, my self... for that matter. Deep down that was my considerably trained, unconscious, unfathomed, unchallenged belief. So I smiled for you, on command. And I simply looked down when you slime-a-ly told me I had a beautiful smile. (Like no shit, douchebag, of course it is. It's a smile. If it was not pleasing to the eye it would be called a grimace, or a smirk and would hold a very different social connotation). But as healing has happened, I have begun to know, not only my story and who I am, but to recognize and accept, that I also know who you are. And, given my history, given my survival, is it any wonder that my instincts would be spot on? So no, in the age of increasing understanding of the gut brain connection, I do not feel the need to justify my instinctual ability to differentiate between the man who passes of his mindless statement of fact (the sky is blue, the wind is cool, my smile is beautiful) for some gift in-debting me to an interaction with him and the one who, in his wholeness, takes note of a clear sky or the wind on his face or the beauty in the smile of a stranger, or daughter or friend and says "thank you mother earth", "thank you lord", "thank you, stranger, daughter friend... you're smile is beautiful". It's funny where growing takes you... Who could have known that one day I would so honestly, so genuinely not give a fuck what you think about me, smile or bitch or not because the funny thing about that is IT'S unequivocally, irrevocably, unquestionably YOUR PROBLEM! You're anger, your shame, your day ruined... or not. Entirely unrelated to me and mine. For, as it turns out... only some roses are red, and I no longer care, if you think I'm a bitch.