Month: April 2016

Please just hurt me and leave. Hey, I mean really hurt me. Don’t just stand there calling me a cunt and saying what a stupid little baby I am because I’m crying. Don’t just slam your drunk fist into your hand over and over again. Don’t just grab my mug of tea and throw it across the room. Don’t just chase me into the bedroom and hurl me onto the bed. Don’t just stand over me and spit in my face. Don’t just laugh at me and say I’ll never make it to the phone to reach the police. And don’t just clench your teeth and tell me that I created this. Dude, come on. Don’t just threaten to hurt me.

Really hurt me. Hit me. Make my nose bleed. Put your hands around my throat and choke me until I’m afraid that I might actually die. Make it hurt to swallow and make it so that my voice is quiet and raspy for days. Punch me in the stomach so that I double over. Kick me in the back so hard that I throw up. Squish my face into the pillow and stab your finger into my eye. Take my head in your hands and bang it off the wall, not once or twice, but enough times to knock some sense into me. Enough so that I can understand that as my husband you are owed a certain amount of ungodly things.

Go ahead. Kick dents in my Volkswagen. Push me out of your house in the middle of the winter night and make me sleep in my car but then pull the door handles off of it to get at me again. Rip the rear view mirror off in a rage. Hold me hostage in the back of your truck. Tear my clothes off my body. Force me to have sex with you and then disapprove of my performance. Drag me out into the dirt road and make me sit out there all night while you stay warm in the vehicle. Knock me down, stuff gravel in my jeans, and drag me across the road. Talk shit about me. Break my camera. Burn my passport. Do whatever you gotta do to get it over with. Please. Just hurt me. And then leave.

I’ll lay here for a minute after you’re gone. And then I’m gonna get back up.

Today I did not go to work because I have a black eye. Yesterday I went to work although my eye was red and stinging and watering, and at times I just had to close both eyes and put my head down and wait. Driving to work and back was stressful because I could barely see. But, yesterday, I woke up still drunk and so it seemed manageable at the time and I went to work. There wasn’t any bruising or swelling. I said it was a spider bite when people asked what happened to me. That’s weird, right? But I don’t know, my mom actually had a real spider bite one time that made her eye pink and watery. Anyways, a kind friend offered that it was probably pinkeye. Ya I guess that would have been a better thing to say, or even allergies, you know, but whatever. Today my head was swollen though, and my face bruised, and I was ashamed. Today I didn’t go outside.

But that’s what happens. We shame ourselves. We say it’s okay. We say we’re fine. We go to work. We lie, and then we do it all again. Ha! That’s the best part. We do it again. We even contribute to it. Help it along, you know, whatever it is that we do which encourages it. We probably want it. We do want it. I want it. Sometimes it really does seem that way.

This might not be your story. This isn’t my whole story. But if I didn’t have this to tell I might not know who I am. I am flawed. I am broken. I am grateful. I am amazing. Today I tell this story. And fuck that guy.