i’ve been angry and sad about things that you do
sorry i haven’t written, but i need you now.
i am so fuggin tired of getting bitched at by him. all he does on our short visits is make fun of me, like i’m some stupid kid he has to chastize. he’s usually mad and aggressive and is quick to bite and then whimper as if i dealt the blow or be indignant even if he has no founding. he likes to take times when i’m upset and change it into a situation where i’m in the wrong and am supposed to be on my knees begging for forgiveness.
so today he was late, planned to only spend an hour or two with me (he was thinking that going to a movie would let him out too late) and then retracted his offer after spending 15 minutes in the car with me. tease me much? why do that after i told him i prefer long visits to short visits just a few weeks ago? why bother coming down if he was in an irritable mood already?
i’m so angry. i’m mad at myself for just living up to harrison and i’m mad at him for being so shitty with me and i’m pissed that my night off is wasted again and i’m mad that i have to wake up early to call pam and fix my fuggin schedule again for him and i’m mad that he’s always using the excuse of ‘well i just switched from third to first shift’ because i did it and my transition only lasted a day and a half. He’s been on first for two weeks now. I’m frustrated because you told me about Her having a final date to either have a job or move out by. i wish you hadn’t because now i have a fear of everyday that goes by and you don’t bring it up. did the date come and go? did you give her an extension? did you say nevermind i love you too much will you stay? is she gone? may i finally come see your house so i don’t have to keep lying to my mother, saying that i don’t have time, i’m not free when you are, he says it’s a mess right now, i have to study, your kid has school? can i start to have a relationship with you where i don’t have to worry about who you’re touching at night and who you whisper too because you had a dream that made you hard?
and i must admit that i am also very sad. the more he leaves me alone to fend for myself and pulls himself away, the more upset i get. i feel like he’s being dishonest and the only way to hide it from me is to not be with me or talk to me, so i have no opportunity to ask the questions i should. i’m worried that he’ll get nice and drunk between now and next i see him and use Her to get off and not tell until months later when he can’t take the guilt. i’m tired of waiting for him to fuck someone else, Her or otherwise. something inside me tells me he’s going to do it, as well as his track record with his past few major relations. i just wish i knew when. i wish that it wouldn’t have to be a surprise when he does it and he better not wait until we’re living together to do it. if he’s going to, i wish he’d do it now so we could break up, get over it and be friends. i’m scared that he’s done it already and that’s why he’s ignoring me. i’m scared he’s lying to me now. i’m scared this is turning out just like with nick, where there was no honesty and, once i became real, he left me to rot all by myself, not knowing another soul in the whole state i had just moved to.
why am i scared he’s lying? he said that the next time i deceived him, he would have no problem with lying to me and when the ‘second time’ happened, he said he was okay with lying to me now. so yes, i’m terrified that the only reason things have gotten better up to this point is because he’s lying to me now. and it doesn’t help to ask. i ask and if he’s says yes or no i can’t be consoled. Yes and i’m devasted. No and it could be a lie.
so all i can do is ignore the emptiness i feel when i think about him and his ‘other’ family living so far away and happy and secluded from me. i just keep getting up and going to school and going to work and smoking to drown out the voices i hear that echo everything that asshole told me.
all it does is make me mad. i hate living up to what he said i was. i know what you all think he meant, but i know what he said to me. i know how flippant he was and i saw the cold look in his eye, thinking ‘girl, you just want attention’ when all i could think is ‘please help me. there’s something wrong inside me.’ i sit here in past pain and present, unable to let go of some things, some things that are ground into me as a testament to a living truth.
all i can do is sit here and read the inscriptions carved into my heart that float back in streams of memories. i remember going into preschool with my slippers on and watching ms. meier slip on a coat in third grade. mrs. stallworth reading us where the red fern grows and putting on an ireland show. i remember apt and mrs. svenson and how much i admired her and wanted to be just like when i got older. i remember when lilly came. she reminded me of mrs. svenson. i remember joe kneeling on the floor during prayer and following suit. i remember the youth house. i’d get there before everyone else and unlock it. i’d run to turn on the heat so it would be warm when lilly got there. the cozy winter mornings we’d spend there. i remember those big ass pillows and spilling orange drink on the carpet, trying to wipe it up with a colored napkin. spray painting the chairs. whipped cream battles and mike, dante and whitney. going on a retreat. going on a service mission, going to that lady’s house and fixing up her backyard. replacing all the needed love with a betterment and promise of prayer. i remember the fortune telling and JTT babble at recess. all the saturday cartoons and the winter train ride. i remember the parish picnics and marie’s vbs. i remember my sunday mornings with peanut butter bagels and dresses with frills and stockings and itchy slips and annoying shoes. i remember coloring my all purple guard. my mom’s face while she sat at the kitchen table. william’s garlic breath. brandon pawing himself and the half drunken stupor of the one guy who told me his name. i remember biting my tongue at the comment that sprang to mind. the picture and last line of john’s poem. his laugh and the night i held him in the car and sang to him. i remember watching the blinds inside the doubled glass windows at children’s hospitol bouncing when i punded my head against them. i remember crying into the night and no one taking me seriously, except that manic boy who pulled my ponytails out to the sides and danced with my hair. i remember sitting back and screaming, looking at my friend’s death. i remember sitting back and screaming wheni saw, for a second time, God spared my worthless, stupid life.i remember how it felt to hide in matthew’s. to lay in his lobby on the floor with all those friends and take pictures and laugh hard everyday. the pain at being lured into another state, 12 hours from anything i knew to be left all alone. to come home and see how proud everyone was at my going away from my house. they thought i was so strong and brave. i remember when i admitted defeat and slunk home. i remember when i ran away to live elsewhere. i remember when you looked up from magic and saw me. when we sat outside. when everyone left and we still sat out there. i remember thinking, damn, he has a kid. well, we can be friends though. i remember the pain of your lying to me through silence and your constant decpetion of me. i remember when i first saw y
our heart begin to open to me. you gave me acid. you gave tasks and goals to accomplish. you gave me hopes and inspiration. you gave me absences and fights and sweet make-ups. you gave me your time and effort as well as your attitude and bitterness.
i’m going to bed. i don’t know why i listed all those memories, but it felt good.
goodnight.
–dc–