I've felt like screaming and flailing in every direction. Instead I lay and wail inward. I can't remember it being this bad. I remember wallowing quietly and sometimes loudly, but this pain is ferocious. It corrodes my deep thoughts and steals peace in quiet moments. Graphic. Loud and graphic. I see and feel each part, shallow and delicate, deep and wild.
Again and again forever, you say
I am me, I am me, says I
6/04/2008 Wednesday
Yesterday, I left Pax. I left the house with nothing but my purse, I walked down the street and got on a bus, with Stephen saying "keep walking", "Just keep walking", "You're doing great." I wept so powerfully, deep swollen tears. My body revolted, scared and shaking. "Stick with what you know." I say and sometimes, a lot of times, believe that I deserved it. I deserved for him to kill me, take my life and throw it away...the way I wanted to so many times. "Give in and let him." "This is what you've wanted." I have been hurt before, even indulged in the deserving, felt every hurt with all of me. "Don't go away, be with it." "Savor it and breathe it all in, to every part of you." I would look to the ceiling and go blank except for the pain beating deep inside of me, and in my wrists. I showed him all of me, so this was not like last time. I opened up the hardest parts and trusted him with my vulnerability. "Take me, here I am." "I'm ready." He did. He was not worthy of what I gave to him. I gave of myself so freely. He took that. It was not enough, I guess. I had to give him everything and more. I know how to be happy now. I have given not enough and too much. Maybe I didn't give too much, maybe I gave the right amount to the wrong person.
That day:
He bought vodka to have. He wanted it more than quiet peace.
I shrunk within myself, deep deep deep. I hurt myself, I cut my vein, stuck with a pin, two pins, three pins, four pins. An addict's habit, by appearance. "I was wrong, it was ok." "You're making too much of this." "He's hurting us both." "Control that hurt, protect yourself, hurt yourself." I, in blind preservation, grabbed and intended to destroy the metaphor of all suffering. Clear liquid poison, pretty in ribbons. He grabbed me, was upon me quick, "preserve the hurt." He saved it in the low cupboard, I bit deep into his arm, swung and flailed, struggling to get free. He held me down, was upon me quick. Squeezed tight my wrists "feel that hurt." "Love. Hard." He let me up into my corner, my private hovel. I felt the loss of possession. A prideful holding of deserving for once. I wanted to sleep in a bed, still angry. I wanted to reclaim what he had taken, my privacy and ownership.
He pushed me out, rougher than before, into my only home, threw me to the ground, laundry to wash and rid of grime. I hyperventilated, I cried uncontrollably, I regained some sense. He came in, let me out. I went for my phone, the only feasible protection, my mom's voice, a squad car. He regained his senses, wrenched it from my hands. My next sure protection was noise, sound, "neighbors ring out." He regained his senses and shut that out, he was upon me quick, I kicked and (I remembered the hallway. He pulled my hair to the ground, shoved my face to wood, "no resistance.") Now. Muffled the sound with something close, a gag to save him. I pulled my punches, cried with a terror that spread through me. He pushed my face together, eyes rolling, eyes widening. He talked and screamed close to my face. "Be quiet." "Shut up, just shut up." "Please, forced whisper, please." "Why are you making me do this" "Be quiet, stop crying, just stop crying." Forced whisper. Shouting."
He pressed the pillow hard to my face, I searched for every breath. I quieted until there was no breath. He loosened the tight grip. I screamed for help. I tried desperately to calm and quiet my desperation. I went limp with no breath. I gasped because I could not stand my lungs' screaming. I talked and pleaded. "I'll be quiet." "I'll be quiet, just let me go." Muffled request, quieted screams. Shocked terror. "He is going to kill me." "This is it." "This is how the murdered feel just before everything goes quiet." "I was wrong." (I lived the next week numb.) The upstairs rustling shoved reality back into his brain, in through his ears. He let me go. The cops were there. He begged me quietly for his life, for mercy. "I could end it." But I didn't. I told them nothing, I went within myself, deep deep deep. "What's that on your neck?" "I don't know" Hand marks. Strangle bruises. No one can see. "Save him. Save him. Save him. Save him. Save him. Save him. Save him." So I did. They left with familiar reluctance. Shaking and wagging their necks as if to say "She'll be dead next time we come here." "They always protect the bastards." I collapsed in shock, he iced my bruised neck, my blood shot-eye-bags.
I wandered the next week. To work, answer calls, questions. "I need answers." I made him feel safe, secure. Shoved myself, deep deep deep. Numb. "So, I'm back to complacency." "Familiar." "I don't deserve to be happy." "Fulfilled." "I deserve this." "What I get." "Here it is, your life." I floated above it, watched my life play out in silence. Let each day steal a piece of me... "Act normal." "Escape." "Get help." So I did. Now it is in cataclysmic motion down the hill.
(Pax might be dead in my home. He said he would be. He wanted to steal every sanity left in me.)
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