Through the Looking Glass

Happy Anniversary.

I can't believe that it was 16 years ago this week that we met. There are days it seems like only yesterday. There are days it seems like it is happening right now.

You know, it is funny but I can still remember the oddest things about that night. I remember my shoes, vividly. They were black patent leather looking flats, with a crest or coat of arms stamped on the vamp. I loved those shoes, they were so shiny. And when I think about that night, I can see them clearly…one foot on either side of the dome light in your car. I never saw those shoes again. One was lost on the way to the basement, and the other was taken as evidence after they cut it from my grotesquely swollen foot. It was a shame, I loved those shoes, they were so shiny.

The dashboard of your car, I think of that occasionally. I'd never had as close a view of the underside of a dash as I did that evening--my head wedged as far under it as possible, the wires digging into my cheeks and eyes as you kicked. I didn't realize how many wires are down there, just hanging around under a dashboard. I still wonder what they are all for; I know they won't stop the car, because I pulled a bunch of them out trying to do just that. Remember? When the radio quit right in the middle of a song you liked, you were so mad! I couldn't make out what you were saying, with my head down under the dash and all, but your voice got higher and higher pitched as you went. Sounded kind of funny, like a cartoon.

It was such a long night, bled right through the next day and into that night too. Odd how first meetings can be like that, where time seems to either stand still or stream by so quickly that you barely register the hours. I wonder how it felt to you? Like a lightspeed bullet train, or a slow leisurely stroll? I know for me it was a slow, ponderous passing of each minute, coupled with a desperation that a minute had passed, and that minute might be the last we had, the last I had.

There are so many things about that first night I will never forget--the smell of your crotch when you wedged my head under the steering wheel and forced yourself into my mouth: urine and sweat, bad cologne and surprisingly, fresh cut grass. How I literally saw stars when my head slammed into the basement wall for the third time in rapid succession. As I started to go under, I remember giggling to myself that it was just like the cartoons, with bluebirds and stars circling my head. Silly what you think of sometimes. Oh, there are others: the crack of bones breaking, which is much louder than I would have ever thought being inside the body and all; the incredible blinding pain of the knife, and how once the endorphins kicked in and I lost enough blood, it didn't really hurt anymore.

There have been so many days, nights since that first one--and though we've spent them mostly apart, you are always with me. With me in the scars on my ankles, my back, inside my vagina, with me in the spilt second I panic at an unfamiliar touch, with me in my dreams, always. We are a couple, you and I, two moons falling around a sun, bound by the gravity of what you did and the way it still lives in me. You've moved a lot these past years, first to the county jail, then to several other jails until after 5 years, you moved on. Moved out of prison and back into normal life. I've moved too, moved out of a life where I was confident, where I had a plan for the future, into a hole of pain and loss, and slowly, slowly back from that darkness. Sometimes, I wish you well, I hope you can make something of your life, hope you realize what you've done. Most of the time, well...I don't wish you well. Most of the time when I think about you, it is with a blinding flash of fear, pain and absolute fury.

So today I say, Happy Anniversary. I hate you.