The night I lived

There was a time that I wanted everything to just stop.  It was fall, just as things were starting to get cold again- one of the first snows on the ground.  It was the semester that I didn't go back to school- for the first time I saw friends continue on and simply leave me behind.  No one seemed to notice the absence, but stuck in a tiny town in Maine I was screaming-
"I'm here, I matter, I'm important and I'm missing! Doesn't anyone notice?"
But no one did notice, really.  Six months before I had three, four, five young men courting me- and now that I was *absent* all had forgotten except for one, my boyfriend.  That word still seemed strange on my tongue, never having had one in all my 19 years of life.  But now things had changed.
Six months before I was pure and innocent and seemed perhaps desirable; my little girl perspective of the world managed to turn young men's lust into worth.  But even there, at school, I had my moments.  One by one people turned their backs on me.  Mostly girls first, as they tend to do at the first sign of a social pariah.  There were nights, long ones, when I felt so utterly alone.  I walked out to the middle of the rustic bridge one, two, twenty times or more; wondering if one small jump would end it or simply leave me in a mangled unlovable mess.
Finally, in a fit of despair I gave up my innocence and with it went my fight.  The night that I slept with him, I knew that he didn't love me.  I knew that it was all in my head, that he probably never would-but some part of me went to bed still believing in fairy tales.  When I woke up, Hansel and Gretel were dead and Cinderella's glass slipper had shattered.
After that I believed what people said about me.  I was a whore, slut, worthy of shame and ridicule, not worthy of happiness or the air that I was so greedily filling my lungs with.  I lied to everyone, said it had never happened, lied to myself until I couldn't even remember the details, much as I wanted to hold on to them.
There was one person who still told me I had worth, though that worth was built on the lies I was telling, completely dependent on my status as a Truly Pure Girl.  I should have seen, right from the start, that he was beginning to control me, using his role as the Experienced Man to show me that the only time I had worth was through him, but I was so genuinely ashamed of my own actions that I made a house out of lies and hoped that it didn't fall down.
To be honest, I didn't think it would last.  I knew by that point that I was going to have to leave, knew that everything would be changing, so I thought that perhaps with distance he would become disinterested, break my heart, and let me go.  Heartbreak would truly have been kinder.
But he thought, through my own deception, that he was the First, and that made me a prized possession. And so when I left he didn't break it off, instead he let me linger somewhere on a shelf in his life.  I wasn't truly there but I wasn't truly gone either.
And so, summer came- normal summer, almost happy summer.  Work sucked but I was 19 and summer jobs were supposed to suck.  I made friends, made flirtations, and had I not been tied to my shelf I probably could have found summer romance.  It almost happened, once.  We were sitting at the top of Cadillac mountain, and he started talking about love.  He looked at me and I looked at him and we almost kissed.  It was the most intimate moment I had ever experienced.  Nothing happened, but somehow I understood that this was different, this was what it was to be valued.
But I had a boyfriend, and he told me that he wanted me forever, asked me to marry him at least three times a day, and played games of truth or dare for hours on the phone.  And that, I thought, was what a *Mature Long Distance Relationship* was supposed to be.
And then fall came.
And people went back to school.
And I stayed in frigid Maine.
The tourist season ended and with it, my job.  The end was horrible beyond words but it was over.  I had nothing to show from my summer, I had earned more than ten thousand dollars and spent it all on weekend road-trips to Pennsylvania and thai food and an online game that I didn't play.
He stopped talking on the phone. Started asking why we had to talk, what new things we could possibly have to say to one another- but still he could not let me go and now I needed him because he was the *only one* left.  Well, not quite the only one.
That man, the innocence stealer, he was asking me why I was throwing my life away.  Why I wanted to be with someone so cruel.  But, I wondered, what could be more cruel that plucking something fresh and sweet and then throwing it away?  And so I ran from him, straight into the arms of the only person I had left, someone who had not yet shown their full capability of cruelty.
And so, one night in early fall, I went for a walk.
There was frost on the grass but I purposefully left my jacket behind, wearing flip flops over the crusty ground of the summer estate long since abandoned for a warmer home somewhere to the south.  There was a little bay, private, just beyond the long driveway, maybe a mile and a half from my house.  I walked, phone to my ear, talking to someone who had stopped listening months before.  Finally, looking at the bay I said something that made him listen.
"How cold do you think the water is?"
"What?"
"How cold do you think it is, now?"  I dipped my pinky toe in, and immediately I could feel the shock of hundreds of tiny pins spreading up from the icy water.  Silence, and then
"You're scaring me, stop it."
"I could just go for a swim."
"Don't do that, stop it.  Go home, ok?"
For a moment, standing there, I could see it happening before my eyes.  Pulling off my shoes and wandering into the water, pushing my head under to quicken the numbing effects, and just floating until unconsciousness and the tide carried me away.  Gone.  I wondered if he would call anyone, or if it would take weeks for them to find me washed up on some forgotten shore.  Maybe I wouldn't be found.
I don't know what it was that stopped me.  Maybe it was love for my little brother, he had saved me so many times in the past.  Maybe it was fear of pain; I don't like uncomfortable situations.  Whatever the reason I put the phone back to my ear and slipped my numbing toe back into the sandal.
"Only kidding."
"Good, now go home where you'll be safe."
Only when I got home I was more disappointed in myself than ever.  Because I was a cowered, because even in this I had failed.
I wonder if I would have done it, if I had known what the next three years would bring.  If I had known that they would come with physical, sexual, and worst of all emotional abuse.  If I knew I would be scared to talk, scared to eat, have to ask permission to dress and undress, to go to bed and go to work.  If I would have know how much it would have hurt when everything finally, inevitably crumbled.
All I know is that somehow I survived.  But not everyone survives.
Gwen, I wonder if you were feeling the same way at the same time, if maybe we had talked or noticed each other things could have been different.  Your death brought me a little closer back to life, but I often wonder what would have happened if I had stepped out into the bay- maybe you wouldn't have made that choice just one year later.
And then, finally after years of abuse and torment someone else took a step into the bay.  Someone I had never met, that I know of, though I'm sure we passed each other dozens of times on our tiny college campus.  I was in yet another horribly abusive relationship, firmly anchored in what psychiatrists would I'm sure call a *pattern,* but somehow what he did woke me up.  Once again it was real, I was standing there looking at a reflection of my own past, only this time I wasn't helpless.  I could hold hands, could listen and wipe away tears.  Without that, I wouldn't have every truly lived, without that, I wouldn't have ever truly loved.
I wish you hadn't I sincerely do; but I also wish that you could know the love and joy that you unknowingly brought back into this world.
I am not that terrified girl anymore, I don't think I will ever feel that amount of despair again, but I will never as long as I live forget how it feels to stand alone looking out over the icy black water.

Forever and a day

For the first time in five years, I feel safe.  Here I am, curled happily on the couch and there you are in the computer chair; I can easily make out your strong profile in the glow from the tv.  I don't need to hide behind pseudonyms and distinctive eye colors anymore, I can easily say that I love you, Matthew, and that is my talisman against anything and everything the world can throw at me.  

This love is more than a passing infatuation and it's more than fear of being alone.  The only other "love" I have known was born out of fear and guilt; there is not a day that goes by that I don't thank my guardian angel for opening my eyes and allowing me a way out of that.  Out of the abuse, the hatred, the feeling of despair.  Two years ago I didn't care if I lived or died, I thought that I was disposable, furniture, worthless.  Some would say that I needed to have someone give me love to show me that I was worth it, but my dearest Matthew you have done more than that- you insisted that I start to love myself again for me  and no one else.  That truly saved my life.  

And now I know that if I die tomorrow, I have known true happiness and true love.  There are so many who never have that privilege and so for that I am beyond lucky.  I love you, Matthew, now and forever. 

What goes around...

It's been a long long time since you've heard from me, but this is just too good.  Oh sweetie, to think that a few months ago I wanted to remember the good things and move on- with each passing day I realize more and more what an absolute shithead you are and how horribly you treated me and everyone else in your life.  And now the icing on the cake.
Does she know?  I can't imagine you wouldn't have told her, but then you never really did have the guts to confess your wrongs.  And your mother, did you tell her?  One day, sitting around the table were you just casually like,
"Oh so I cheated on my girlfriend last spring (again) and now I'm going to be a baby daddy."
I can imagine the scene.
More likely, you didn't tell them-couldn't muster the courage.  It won't take that long for everyone to figure out, what with child support and another human's life irrecoverably tied to yours. I would almost feel bad for the woman in your life, if she hadn't proven herself to be a controlling brat.  (#notsorry)  Truly, the people I feel the worst for are your family.  They have supported you and loved you through all the shit you've pulled, and they don't deserve this. 
The only thing I can think is "that could have been me."  So easily.  And yet, here I am with an honest to goodness nice guy, a man who treats me with respect and love and gives me all the things that I didn't realize I deserve.  And there you are, with a trainwreck life and no future.  I know you thought I was a bitch, but I think karma's got me beat.

Mirror mirror on the wall

I wish I could tell you that it all gets easier from here.  To "move on and learn," or even only to move on.  It doesn't stop though, this isn't the end of the sore raw feeling in your chest.  You were young and full of hope, I know.  Beautiful eyes and a quick smile, happy to daydream away your monochromatic life.  I know you because I am you-past present and future.  In the beginning, I was disdainful.  How could you fall for the simplest, oldest tricks in the book.  And then I look back, through the mirror of you to this:

So I'm a romantic, or supposed to be I guess.  But some days, sometimes I'm really ready to take my Austen and throw it out the window.  Setting people up to believe in simple things like "love..."  nothing simple about it.  But I know that I would plod outside, dust it off and try to put the gold-leafed pages back to order.

I'm sorry, for what it's worth.  I wonder now if I was truly saving you or if I was simply ending your fairytale sooner than it would have organically.  Write, or sing, or paint or play- I don't know what it is that you need to do to move beyond this.  But try to.

Forget what you can and bury the rest.  In a few years you can dust it off and somehow it will be a little duller and a little easier to understand.  Use your hate, use your tears, don't waste them on social media. 

You are strong.  
I am strong.
We are strong.

Promise me one thing: in two years, or five years, or ten- when you finally meet your mirror don't be too quick to laugh and dismiss her.  Try to help, try to teach, and hesitate for a moment before you jump to end their fairy tale.

The dark

The car is out of control and before I know it I'm flying though the windshield, airless floating through time.  Everyone always says it's your life that flashes before your eyes, but for me it is only the last few hours.  Black skeletons of trees surround the car and their imposing limbs seem to mock my fate.  I don't realize I've landed until I feel the pain on my leg of crunched bones, my arm bent awkwardly behind my head and my head forced to stare at the night sky.
She will be so angry about the car.  And here I will die alone.  Those two thoughts are my only company now, aside from the orange tongues of flame licking the carcass of the great metal beast beside me.  She will be so angry, and I am alone and I didn't get to say goodbye.  He will hate me because I can't say goodbye. 
Suddenly a crashing through the trees, loud and metallic- a blinding light cuts my face and before I can shield my eyes I am awake.
I've sweat through the sheets and the stripped yellow shirt- blindly I swat away blankets, swimming in pillows until my hand finally rests on warm skin.  With a sleepy grunt he turns and I take let out my breath, I hadn't even realized I was holding it in.  I am safe, I tell myself; safe and loved and I don't need to say goodbye because he's still right here beside me.  The dreams are getting increasingly disturbing- two nights ago it was an acid bath and before that a train dropping off into the ocean.  The only reason I slept at all was the knowledge that in the morning I would awake to the usual ruckus in the kitchen and this sleeping saviour beside me. 

And now, tonight, what do I have?  Enough alcohol to make sure I fall asleep, surely, but in the morning only spiders and dust bunnies to wake me.  So sleep is, once again, a luxury I will have to do without.  I've been here before, I know that sleepless nights lead to a half life, drifting past people as though nothing really exists outside my own mangled sleep deprived brain.  Wishing only for those few precious seconds where I can sleep without dreaming. 

Sleepless Dreams

I'm completely exhausted, tired to the point of delirium but somehow I can't close my eyes.  Every time I try, I see beautiful brown green eyes and a smile that lights up my world.  Tonight I am happy, tonight I am loved and free.  For the first time in years I feel young again, young and beautiful.  
The night we met, he spun me around and kissed my next.  Gorgeous, he called me, Gorgeous, whispering it to my white pleated collar, "You are so fucking gorgeous."  He walked me back, I think, I've tried so hard to remember- we talked about money or politics but really it was his smile that captivated me.  I tried to go home, thought I was going home, but somehow my next memory is of two bodies crushed into one twin xl bed- a sweet whisper in my ear begging me to stay, telling me that we could just be together and that was enough.  And once again, I was Gorgeous. 
It might have been then that I felt my soul tugging at me, feeling so close to it's match, or maybe that's just a retrospective leap of the imagination.  Either way, weeks later I found a way to deliberately put myself in his path, and there he was again with that same beautiful smile.
I love him now, love him comfortably and passionately all at the same time- and more than anything in the world I want to belong to him.  I'm exhausted by distance and the push and pull of everyday life, but somehow when I close my eyes, the smile is far more persuasive than sleep.

Sandstorm

In my dream there's wind and sand and the dry air sticks to the roof of my mouth.  I'm looking, searching despratly and silently for something I dread finding.  He's here, I know- this place is haunted by sweat and piercing blue eyes.  Row upon row of cooridor walls and every step is one closer to inevitable heartbreak. 
When I find him it's unsurprising, there is the farmiliar faded brown shirt and dirty blond hair cropped close.  And that's when everything goes grey.  No breath, no tears, nothing at all except for the words I've been failing to say for years.
In my dream it's too late, it's always too late.