I don't know the date any more. I know when the weekend is, because you do not leave this room on weekends, but I've lost the weeks, not many, but more than a few. It's because I have stopped writing, stopped marking down the days. You are irritable about this. You think I have stopped on purpose. To goad you in some way. To punish you. "What do I have to punish you for?" I ask of you, looking you in the eyes, so the question is really known. You always look away first. "Are you doing this for a laugh?" you reply, like it is me holding all of the control. I want to tell you, no yell at you, that I no longer want to voice my existence, that I do not have one with you, that even the one on the slips of paper that no one will ever see, beyond you and I, is pure bullshit. I'm tired of trying to see anything in you, other than what you are. I have no words left for you. You know what you are doing, but you won't say it out loud. I feel safe to have stopped writing, your vile friend shipped out on his year long deployment, you told me, sad one night. "Now you don't have any friends," I said to you then. I don't know if you heard me. I didn't look at you. I got up to go pee instead. I suppose you might mention Christmas and that will get me back on track, through there is something refreshing about this not existing thing. About not having to count the days that I've been here with you. I think it must sort of be like floating on a cloud. Comfortable, empty, pure and white. It is an easy way to be.
I have mastered feeling cold now. I've battled with it my whole life. Some of my earliest memories are of sitting outside the locked backdoor, crying for my mother to let me in, as the Canadian winters bit at my face. I would give up and curl up under the back porch and wait until she called my name. It always felt like hours. I wear sweaters for half of the summer. Sometimes when I peel the layers of clothing off of me, I am surprised to see a shirt I haven't in three days. I own five pairs of slippers, one for every room in my apartment. Throw blankets litter furniture, they're in every corner. I wonder if my apartment has been cleaned out and given to another person. Or maybe it hasn't been cleaned out at all, maybe they use my stuff, sleep in my bed, drink from my cups, live my life. I hope they love it. I wonder, do my friends and family ever knock upon the door? You laugh at me, when I mention them. My friends and family. "You will never see them again."
You're probably right.
I've forgotten the sound of their voices.
I guess you might think that I am giving up, and I will let you believe that, but I'm just minding my energy for when I will need it.
It should never get this bad.
I'm out of my medication, so in a lot of ways, it is good that I am barely eating. But you have held me down, refused to let me up, when I've said I need to eat, eight times now. Do you see the stars and circles up in the corner pages of the journals that I no longer write in? My silly, little doodles. It's how I keep count. The last time you held me down for an hour.
You've talked about your best friend raping me fifty-three times.
Those are the only two things you talk about. What we will eat. And sex. That's it. I haven't started a conversation in so long that I can't remember what the last was about, but the bonus to that is not having my head shoved into your crotch quite as much. I still say No to the things you say, but just halfheartedly. You won't shut-up, it doesn't matter how often I ask. I feel like I'm a puppet, made of wood and fabric and string, repeating the same word that holds no meaning to me. But it should to you, if you are human.
You say to me, "Sex is a good hobby to have", and I snort every time. Hobbies are a way of learning new things, they are the quests to better ourselves, they are a way to create something substantial, something to admire, something to be proud of. What is to learn in sex? How to please another body, a body that almost universally can pleasure its own self better? And it is a pleasure not even ranked high. How many orgasms are on anyone's Best Moments lists? I want to know what it feels like to float in space.
You say you would try anything once, but everything you talk about is being done to me. None of it is nice. All of it humiliating and degrading and painful. You wouldn't be trying anything. You would just be watching, inflicting.
When I ask you to stop, you act like I'm the fucked-up one. "It is the ultimate trust to give yourself completely over to someone," you explain to me. You want me to hand myself over to you. For torture.
So you can have a hard dick.
Enlightening.
You will stare me down, like you think I should see some dark, brooding, misunderstood, mysterious being. You aren't. You will sniff and wave your hand at me like I am useless and stupid, if I remain unwilling to let you piss on me.
"You only live once," you mock at me.
And I pray to God that is the truth with you.
Last night you pretended like you were sheepish. A little embarrassed. A soft shrug of your shoulder, a glance downwards before meeting with my eyes. That is how I knew that you were acting. There is no such thing as a little embarrassed. And I saw that disgusting glint in your eye. The one that says, I'm game, if you are, in that secret sort of way.
"When I jerk off, I think about you fucking dogs. Little dogs," you said, showing me the size with your hands.
I smiled at you, in a truthful way because I could not imagine working up the balls to say something like that to anyone. I replied, "Thank you for telling me. It is not an easy thing to get out. Those crazy things a person's mind can imagine." I'm giving you an out. I'm trying to find a way to not hate you completely. I'm asking you to be quiet.
"What is crazy about it?" You asked me, with a sniff of your nose and a fast head shake. "It is not crazy."
"Fine. Just keep it to yourself. I don't want to talk about this."
"Yes, we're going to," you replied.
"Fine. Will you let the dog fuck you up the ass?" I said it in an offhand way, I'm all ready to start tuning you out.
But you answered, "No", with no less than a look of disgust on your face. And it woke me up.
"I thought you would try anything once," I pushed the words out of my mouth, instead of pushing my fist into your face. It wouldn't have helped anything. I put on your mocking tone. I've practiced it when I'm bored. I'm good at it.
"Shut-up," you laughed, with appreciation, and you shoved my head towards your crotch, but last night I rebelled and I forced my head up to look into your eyes.
"Maybe you want to lick the dog cum out of my cunt after?"
And I watched as you drew a line. Watched the menace rise up in your face.
"Why would I want to do that? If you keep talking to me like that, I will slap you." And you meant it. "And I will gag you." Please, not again. "I'm getting tired of your shit. This is for only you. I think you will like it. You will do as I say."
"No chance,"I replied.
"So then, there is no problem?" you continued, a blatant refusal to hear my words. "I know a place we can go on Saturday for all kinds of sex fun. Even the dogs. But maybe not the dogs this time." Then you curled your body around mine and said, soft, close to my ear, "We can be together forever. You're my best friend." And then I could hear you undoing your pants.
I wanted to laugh at your unwillingness to unravel yourself, but it is that same laugh, the one where I would vomit on you, so I remained Canadian, ever polite, and swallowed once again for you. It's hard on my body, to keep creating the weaponry, the poison, the stomach bile that should be launched at you. You've never made me uncomfortable, I know you like to think that you have. But I have heard worse from good people. That's something you aren't. Your vileness stinks at the centre of your core. Showing you what love is does not help for your kind. Showing you how you look, how you sound at your most disgusting does not help for your kind. You take pride in making others hateful. The best we can hope for is that someone teaches you how to shut the fuck up. Too bad I haven't been using my vomit when you kiss me. Maybe I could have burned out your vocal cords.
My friend, Michelle, is dead.
It is people like you who ensure this world is not a better place.
And I felt my pity stretch out for miles.
"Maybe after a shower," I said to you last night and jumped up and out from your embrace. "I've had a busy day."
"Okay," you agreed, but you didn't ask me what I had been busy with. I do not think you ever have. I gathered up what I needed for the bath and put it in the blue bag and turned to leave.
"When you come back, you can suck my dick for an hour or maybe more."
I ran through the hallway, down towards the main floor. I would leave with this stupid towel, this one change of clothes, my wallet and my words. I had to remind myself more than once to slow down on the stairs. I slipped and had to catch myself twice.
The main doors were still locked.
I felt blind. But it was almost like not existing, so I could handle it.
I made it to the library and sat down in the first chair I came to. I will just sit here forever. I remember thinking that. Just simple, child-like thoughts were all I could muster. But then hands were in mine and I looked up into the face of another woman. The librarian. How sad to say, she understood right away.
"You can stay with me tonight. Or for as long as you want. I can help you leave too, if you want go," she offered this quick and quiet, crouched down on her heels in front of me. And I was torn for a minute, to go with her or return to you.
It seems like a mistake to not be the one who kills you.
I dreamed of you again last night. The same dream that it has always been. The one I told you about just moments after we met. You thought it was a lie, I could read it in your eyes (and that you liked it anyways), but it has always been the truth, maybe the only one.
We are walking down the middle of that same road again, the walk that I have made you come on, passing that same white house, the same empty fields, our hands joined like always and I am at peace to be with you. It feels good to be with you. There are the trees in the near distance, and up rise the birds, they're crows and they cover the sky and I breathe, like I always do, "It's beautiful." And we watch as they fly closer.
Their maddening caws fill the air. Nothing more than Classic Hollywood horror. I am not scared, my heartbeat doesn't quicken. Serenity and calmness and the rightness of this moment stay with me. I squeeze your hand a little tighter and smile up at you. "This is amazing," you say. I have made you feel good again. You know how good I am at it and you know how glad it makes me to make the eyes of another shine the way yours are.
Wait. This is all new.
A silence fills the air, more fucking Hollywood, reality admonishes my dream, and I look away from you and up again at the sky. The crows are starting to make their descend, but they are changing. Metamorphosing into Neunauge. They fall to the ground with loud thwacks. I do not realise that I have released your hand until, after the stunning, they are squirming and slithering towards you. Their circle jaws opening and latching on to you. You start to disappear.
I wake up joyful to a high winter sun. I think about the letter that I have left for you. I know now that my words will be forever trapped inside of you, they will forever fuck with your head, and that I'm already starting to forget the sound of your voice too.
I have mastered feeling cold now. I've battled with it my whole life. Some of my earliest memories are of sitting outside the locked backdoor, crying for my mother to let me in, as the Canadian winters bit at my face. I would give up and curl up under the back porch and wait until she called my name. It always felt like hours. I wear sweaters for half of the summer. Sometimes when I peel the layers of clothing off of me, I am surprised to see a shirt I haven't in three days. I own five pairs of slippers, one for every room in my apartment. Throw blankets litter furniture, they're in every corner. I wonder if my apartment has been cleaned out and given to another person. Or maybe it hasn't been cleaned out at all, maybe they use my stuff, sleep in my bed, drink from my cups, live my life. I hope they love it. I wonder, do my friends and family ever knock upon the door? You laugh at me, when I mention them. My friends and family. "You will never see them again."
You're probably right.
I've forgotten the sound of their voices.
I guess you might think that I am giving up, and I will let you believe that, but I'm just minding my energy for when I will need it.
It should never get this bad.
I'm out of my medication, so in a lot of ways, it is good that I am barely eating. But you have held me down, refused to let me up, when I've said I need to eat, eight times now. Do you see the stars and circles up in the corner pages of the journals that I no longer write in? My silly, little doodles. It's how I keep count. The last time you held me down for an hour.
You've talked about your best friend raping me fifty-three times.
Those are the only two things you talk about. What we will eat. And sex. That's it. I haven't started a conversation in so long that I can't remember what the last was about, but the bonus to that is not having my head shoved into your crotch quite as much. I still say No to the things you say, but just halfheartedly. You won't shut-up, it doesn't matter how often I ask. I feel like I'm a puppet, made of wood and fabric and string, repeating the same word that holds no meaning to me. But it should to you, if you are human.
You say to me, "Sex is a good hobby to have", and I snort every time. Hobbies are a way of learning new things, they are the quests to better ourselves, they are a way to create something substantial, something to admire, something to be proud of. What is to learn in sex? How to please another body, a body that almost universally can pleasure its own self better? And it is a pleasure not even ranked high. How many orgasms are on anyone's Best Moments lists? I want to know what it feels like to float in space.
You say you would try anything once, but everything you talk about is being done to me. None of it is nice. All of it humiliating and degrading and painful. You wouldn't be trying anything. You would just be watching, inflicting.
When I ask you to stop, you act like I'm the fucked-up one. "It is the ultimate trust to give yourself completely over to someone," you explain to me. You want me to hand myself over to you. For torture.
So you can have a hard dick.
Enlightening.
You will stare me down, like you think I should see some dark, brooding, misunderstood, mysterious being. You aren't. You will sniff and wave your hand at me like I am useless and stupid, if I remain unwilling to let you piss on me.
"You only live once," you mock at me.
And I pray to God that is the truth with you.
Last night you pretended like you were sheepish. A little embarrassed. A soft shrug of your shoulder, a glance downwards before meeting with my eyes. That is how I knew that you were acting. There is no such thing as a little embarrassed. And I saw that disgusting glint in your eye. The one that says, I'm game, if you are, in that secret sort of way.
"When I jerk off, I think about you fucking dogs. Little dogs," you said, showing me the size with your hands.
I smiled at you, in a truthful way because I could not imagine working up the balls to say something like that to anyone. I replied, "Thank you for telling me. It is not an easy thing to get out. Those crazy things a person's mind can imagine." I'm giving you an out. I'm trying to find a way to not hate you completely. I'm asking you to be quiet.
"What is crazy about it?" You asked me, with a sniff of your nose and a fast head shake. "It is not crazy."
"Fine. Just keep it to yourself. I don't want to talk about this."
"Yes, we're going to," you replied.
"Fine. Will you let the dog fuck you up the ass?" I said it in an offhand way, I'm all ready to start tuning you out.
But you answered, "No", with no less than a look of disgust on your face. And it woke me up.
"I thought you would try anything once," I pushed the words out of my mouth, instead of pushing my fist into your face. It wouldn't have helped anything. I put on your mocking tone. I've practiced it when I'm bored. I'm good at it.
"Shut-up," you laughed, with appreciation, and you shoved my head towards your crotch, but last night I rebelled and I forced my head up to look into your eyes.
"Maybe you want to lick the dog cum out of my cunt after?"
And I watched as you drew a line. Watched the menace rise up in your face.
"Why would I want to do that? If you keep talking to me like that, I will slap you." And you meant it. "And I will gag you." Please, not again. "I'm getting tired of your shit. This is for only you. I think you will like it. You will do as I say."
"No chance,"I replied.
"So then, there is no problem?" you continued, a blatant refusal to hear my words. "I know a place we can go on Saturday for all kinds of sex fun. Even the dogs. But maybe not the dogs this time." Then you curled your body around mine and said, soft, close to my ear, "We can be together forever. You're my best friend." And then I could hear you undoing your pants.
I wanted to laugh at your unwillingness to unravel yourself, but it is that same laugh, the one where I would vomit on you, so I remained Canadian, ever polite, and swallowed once again for you. It's hard on my body, to keep creating the weaponry, the poison, the stomach bile that should be launched at you. You've never made me uncomfortable, I know you like to think that you have. But I have heard worse from good people. That's something you aren't. Your vileness stinks at the centre of your core. Showing you what love is does not help for your kind. Showing you how you look, how you sound at your most disgusting does not help for your kind. You take pride in making others hateful. The best we can hope for is that someone teaches you how to shut the fuck up. Too bad I haven't been using my vomit when you kiss me. Maybe I could have burned out your vocal cords.
My friend, Michelle, is dead.
It is people like you who ensure this world is not a better place.
And I felt my pity stretch out for miles.
"Maybe after a shower," I said to you last night and jumped up and out from your embrace. "I've had a busy day."
"Okay," you agreed, but you didn't ask me what I had been busy with. I do not think you ever have. I gathered up what I needed for the bath and put it in the blue bag and turned to leave.
"When you come back, you can suck my dick for an hour or maybe more."
I ran through the hallway, down towards the main floor. I would leave with this stupid towel, this one change of clothes, my wallet and my words. I had to remind myself more than once to slow down on the stairs. I slipped and had to catch myself twice.
The main doors were still locked.
I felt blind. But it was almost like not existing, so I could handle it.
I made it to the library and sat down in the first chair I came to. I will just sit here forever. I remember thinking that. Just simple, child-like thoughts were all I could muster. But then hands were in mine and I looked up into the face of another woman. The librarian. How sad to say, she understood right away.
"You can stay with me tonight. Or for as long as you want. I can help you leave too, if you want go," she offered this quick and quiet, crouched down on her heels in front of me. And I was torn for a minute, to go with her or return to you.
It seems like a mistake to not be the one who kills you.
I dreamed of you again last night. The same dream that it has always been. The one I told you about just moments after we met. You thought it was a lie, I could read it in your eyes (and that you liked it anyways), but it has always been the truth, maybe the only one.
We are walking down the middle of that same road again, the walk that I have made you come on, passing that same white house, the same empty fields, our hands joined like always and I am at peace to be with you. It feels good to be with you. There are the trees in the near distance, and up rise the birds, they're crows and they cover the sky and I breathe, like I always do, "It's beautiful." And we watch as they fly closer.
Their maddening caws fill the air. Nothing more than Classic Hollywood horror. I am not scared, my heartbeat doesn't quicken. Serenity and calmness and the rightness of this moment stay with me. I squeeze your hand a little tighter and smile up at you. "This is amazing," you say. I have made you feel good again. You know how good I am at it and you know how glad it makes me to make the eyes of another shine the way yours are.
Wait. This is all new.
A silence fills the air, more fucking Hollywood, reality admonishes my dream, and I look away from you and up again at the sky. The crows are starting to make their descend, but they are changing. Metamorphosing into Neunauge. They fall to the ground with loud thwacks. I do not realise that I have released your hand until, after the stunning, they are squirming and slithering towards you. Their circle jaws opening and latching on to you. You start to disappear.
I wake up joyful to a high winter sun. I think about the letter that I have left for you. I know now that my words will be forever trapped inside of you, they will forever fuck with your head, and that I'm already starting to forget the sound of your voice too.
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