DEATH NOTE

One of the most emotional things I’ve ever had to do was to let him die. This is not a love story. I guess it used to be…maybe years ago, but now after almost four years of abuse, its more like getting your mind beautifully high on illusions while letting your body get fucked, constantly raped by reality.

Shit…fuck getting high, I’ve put up with nights upon nights of “You’re such a fucking dumbass…” and “I don’t give a shit about you…” and “You just like the rest of them fuckin females….” for a hint of something like “I Love You” coming from his lips. Honestly, a text message with some choice words would make me forget about the time he cussed me out, threw me in his car, and drove off with me sitting barefoot and half naked on church steps next to a cemetery. He’d just remind me that that was the night he told me he cared about me while I pleased him with nervous, yet passionate lovemaking.

I love him. Or yet, I love the thing in him that validates me. My beauty, my intelligence, he reassures my insides that I am indeed supposed to be here. That maybe it is possible for me to be here and to be loved by a man. I see what happens to those without them, I see the pain they go through, the struggles they openly endure. But women with men know how to hide their pain, they understand how to neatly bundle it up and gift wrap it under four bedroom houses and pretty pink baby girl dresses. They may feel incomplete, unwanted, ugly, unloved, unappreciated, and scared, but they are masters of delusion. Their sacrifice is not in vain because it is for “us.” I love the idea of carrying my load of loneliness, hurt, and self-doubt for the sake of “us” instead of unpacking each and healing for my own sake. Why would I allow old unsettled memories to cause me pain, when I can blame twenty years of hurt feelings on being called a bitch?

My stepfather planted seeds of worthlessness in me that I wanted this ex-lover to grow. I asked him to garden insecurities with questions like, “Do you care about me?” It went beyond begging when I would call to ask, “Do you love me?” I knew these questions stripped away my humanity in his eyes. I was no longer a women he used to love; instead, I became another female he could stuff into his overdeveloped manhood. That is how we began validating each other.

Pitiful love words loosely filled his spiritual incompetence with feelings of being needed. But for me, his cruel words validated my hurt. It allowed me to continue the experiential logic I had crafted into a simple equation: men=hurt. Dad died. Stepfather blames his wife’s children for everything. Telling her that her daughters spread their legs to strangers during the night and the younger ones are useless because they don’t turn off lights or put up dishes. And him, the ex-lover, would douse me with cruel words. It was the only thing that wouldn’t change about his nature, the one thing that I could expect from him. I could count on him to hurt my feelings and so, after a certain point, I needed it. It was his way of sharing something with me that could both confirm my worthlessness and legitimize our relationship. Because of course, “He only says such things because he cares.”

After phone conversations I always cried. Crying from his words was the only time I allowed myself to pay attention to my own hurt feelings, scratching surfaces of pains I wouldn’t dare unearth myself. I am unable to tear away at recollections of personal suffering. His harshness rips away bandages that cover such wounds, helping me to remember that they are still there. So anytime I feel a sense of transcendence, or some slight sense of worth, he helps me to excuse it as a mistake, or a passing wind of luck.

Who would I be to accept myself as imperfect, and still be content? Surely it would be better to let one man tear me down based on who he perceives me to be, rather than to let the world experience my me as vulnerable, imperfect, and maybe incomplete. This will be the hardest thing I will ever have to do. To kill every ounce of perceived perfection that I have managed to cover over myself. To kill every part of me that wants pity, validation, and comfortablity. I was not made to be perfect nor was I made to be worthless. I was conversed into existence to shape God as Creation within me. And that is what I plan to do.

This is somewhat of a eulogy. May God have mercy on me for prolonging such mourning.

Blessings Love,

Allie