“Who but the mad would choose to keep on living? In the end, aren't we all just a little crazy?” The random thoughts and ramblings of a sleep-deprived, attention deficient, cursing, and extremely sarcastic Facebook addict... Where's my iPhone?
Saturday, December 3, 2016
Pants on Fire
Wednesday, November 2, 2016
Liar, Liar
You did not get in any fights with anyone, at least anyone that was not over the age of 11 or a female. You seem to find it really easy to bully children and women, but you cannot stand in your own truth or up to another man. You are a liar and everyone knows. Now you are expecting your second child this year, with your cousin… Word has it she will leave you as soon as it gets hard. I dare you to try calling me when your life goes to hell and you have an infant you do not know what to do with. Do not even think you did not burn your bridge. Well I guess you did not burn it, you nuked the damn thing. Jesus will come back before I ever darken your door to help you ever again. I will pray for you because I am Christian and I believe it is the right thing to do. I pray for your new little boy, and your other children because Lord knows they need it. Sweet Honey Iced Tea, they need it more than I can give. I should organize a whole prayer circle for them. Good luck Jack (shit), you will need it.
I am done with you.
Friday, October 28, 2016
How to Avoid Wrinkles
Saturday, October 15, 2016
Thud
I have a terrible cry face... |
Wednesday, October 12, 2016
Ain't Got No Time for That
Not 100% |
Might need medication. |
can you say wannabe? |
Jack has yet to even call to see if Baby Girl has arrived or if I need so much as a box of wipes or diapers. As I write this she is five months old. He has never laid physical eyes on my daughter, though the rumor mill suggests he has seen a few pictures. One day she will ask about him and I hope I’m able to tell her nicer things about her “donor” but as it stands now I have nothing really good to tell her. More than anything I wish I had provided a better father for her than I did. That’s my failing…. But one day he will wake up, likely at the bottom of some bottle and realize he has missed out on the most amazing things. Her first giggle was just as clear and light and magical as you might imagine. BG’s first smile was the best thing I’d seen since they held her up for me to see. She is the most beautiful little girl and making strides and changes every day. These are moments he will never get back, moments that are
not my kid. |
Friday, January 23, 2015
Stand Where I Stood: Sixteen
His friends weren’t at the apartment when we got there; they had gone for a beer run. He pulled me into the bathroom just inside the entry and told me he had his gift for me and we needed some privacy. I was confused, privacy for a gift? There was not anyone home… He kissed me, hard, like he was taking custody of my soul. I told myself to lean into it; this was “passion” right? This is what passion looked like on television. I wondered if I was really this naïve; that I wouldn’t know if this was passion or not. The door was as close to my back that it could have only fused with my flesh to be closer; it started to hurt and so I said something. The dark stare; then the crazy smile, something was about to happen. You could feel the crackle move in the air.
Be small, be quiet, no sudden moves.
A step backward was all it took for him to force me to the ground, my head dragged down door… like cheese against a grater. The bathroom was small and my long legs really had nowhere to go. In a movement that most men would love to master he had my jeans down and I was bare from the waist down to where my jeans wrapped around my boots. On the floor, in an all-male apartment bathroom and my head was crushed up against the door. Roughly my shirt, which tied in the front, was jerked open and my bra pushed up. On his knees he pulled me to him and I felt the full force of his thrust, as my head crashed into the door. With every movement my back would bend, and my head would slam into the door.
Be small, be quiet, no sudden moves.
I heard the key turn in the lock of the front door not even ten feet from where my head was. All of his friends were home and we were all going to celebrate my birthday. Twisted into the bathroom I began to really feel sick about what that might actually mean.
The dark stare, looked down on me and asked if I wasn’t enjoying my fun little birthday surprise… kinky right? He told me I wasn’t making any noise; it hit me, he wanted his friends to hear me so that he would impress them and I would just be shamed. Pressing his hand down hard on the space between my hips, the hollow of the pelvis he pushed harder and my head slammed into the door and I was in a near back bend. This time I made noise, I cried out in pain. Several more of those and I could hear his friends cheering him on. One of them exclaimed loudly that he might put my head through the damned door! Another yelled
“That’s what the fucking deposit is for!”
They were laughing and I could hear the beer bottles clinking. Not one of them, even the one I was trapped with interpreted my “noises” as pleas to stop, cries of agony from the position the forcefulness of this assault, the complete lack of any foreplay… once more I found I was not ready for this onslaught. Another ten minutes went by, I know because his friends were cheering on his stamina. By this point my head had turned and it was now the side of my head and my neck crushed against the door. He was standing above me, holding my hips to him. There was no gift here, the dark stare felt as though it went through me, and to some other place… there was no love in this act.
He did give me a sort of gift that night. My sixteenth birthday was when I learned how to leave myself, if I focused hard enough I could leave my body. I could be anywhere else I wanted to be. That night I was riding a horse with herd of wild mustangs somewhere in the southwest. I threw my hands out wide and pretended to fly away.
Coming back and watching almost from above, I realized he was about to finish and I was expected to act all excited about it. I didn’t master it that night but I learned how to stay completely out, act the way he wanted and expected, but be somewhere else and feel none of the pain. The bellow he made as he came was like some wild creature; his boys cheering him on again… the look to me and I yelled out, the exact opposite of what my body was saying.
“OH GOD! DON’T STOP”
I was rewarded with a wink, and he unceremoniously dropped my body. I slammed into the floor. He zipped his jeans up and threw a towel at me, pushing me aside and stepping over me to leave, I was encouraged to clean up and come out and celebrate being 16 with the guys! My head and neck were still pounding like when you stand in the waves of the ocean for a while and you can still feel the motion of the waves after you leave the water. I found myself once again in a bathroom, degraded, humiliated; despite the state of the young adult male bathroom I found myself huddled into a corner quietly sobbing again. How could I walk out the mere feet into the living room and face four guys who had just heard “my sweet sixteen” and the loss of any dignity I would ever hold in their eyes again.
Muffling my face into the towel, I just let myself cry. Crying was not a luxury I had much of; it leads to questions… expected answers, and then judgment. There is a bang on the door,
“Damn sugar tits, what’s taking so long? Other people need in, get your boney ass out here.”
I stood over the sink and stared at my scarlet face in the mirror. My normal bisque, Scot-Irish coloring was mimicking shades of the double decker buses I had seen in pictures of London. Staring back I found my blue eyes, nearly clear looking against the disgrace cherry color. I straightened the tangle of my long auburn hair, on the back of my head as best I could; I splashed water on my face and adjusted my clothing appropriately. The instruction that I would not show my abs, and button my shirt an extra button had already been ordered. He wanted his boys to know I was a great lay but not want me. The first time I heard him say it, I was shocked; looking back I shouldn’t have been, all men say it
“You’re mine, and if I can’t I fucking have you, they sure as fucking hell won’t. No one will.”
The only way out of this with any sort of dignity was to laugh it off and pretend I was performing on stage, that’s what he wants anyway right? This sweet sixteen, bitter in my mouth with the stale beer, was not at all about me. No, this was his production. After all, isn’t all the world a stage, and us little people merely players? A boisterous and overly enthusiastic round of applause and bows greeted me when I emerged from the diminutive bathroom. Biting my tongue until it bled I hoped that I was not blushing, despite the heat I could feel rising. As any good performer, I executed a deep well practiced ballet curtsy and smiled as genuinely and broadly as I could manage.
Stumbling out of the kitchen with at least his third beer, he staggered straight for me. Grabbing my ass he roughly pulled me to him, triggering a cacophony of more jeers, hoots, and cat calls.
“Sugar bush, I love you so much. You’re great fun.”
If my sense of smell was not failing me, he had some hard liquor and copious amounts of marijuana whilst I composed myself in the bathroom. Pressing his lips to mine once more, came the kiss the one that felt as though he was pulling life from my very core, rancid in taste, co-mingling with his pot and Camels, the rum, and the beer it was all I could to do not to pull away. In my mind I told myself that if the great Vivien Leigh could loathe the infamous breath of Clark Gable and still pull off a convincing Scarlett, then I could deal with the bad breath of someone I felt carried a piece of my soul. His hands were groping, grasping, pulling and squeezing places I felt should be more special than this particular moment. It seemed to go on forever, I liked kissing but this was more than that; this was a declaration not just to me, but to any witness… at this point he truly believed he owned me. This was possession, the stake of the flag and the mark of his territory. My epiphany rang out in my mind and was deafening.
Where had the soft doe brown eyes and gentle lips gone? The soft touch to my face, and hair; who was this new person? The boy that I fallen for, who was so completely consuming, was kind and thoughtful; he was generous and calm. He had openly discussed his feelings for me for months before we really started dating. The mother of a mutual friend told me that he would frequently come to her crying and lamenting that I seemed indifferent. She told him to be patient, that I had been badly hurt when things ended with the elusive first real boyfriend. Knowing that the break up had really wounded me; the boy I now loved was kind and listened.
Together we would walk the woods around my house and tell each other our hurts, and our triumphs; over time we each discovered that scars crisscrossed both our hearts. A bond followed that built a deep trust with this person who seemed to have such an easy soul.
We each struggled to understand the darker parts of ourselves and with that I could open up to those velvet eyes and I felt safe. The physical part of the relationship just flowed and seemed in the moment and it was special. It all came so naturally, like the turn of seasons this deepening of my connection to what I felt was his inner spirit was as normal and almost as expected and ordinary as a walk to the mailbox. I still look back and struggle to remember if it was really a haircut that changed everything or if it was something else. Had I done something to flip the switch? When did Dr. Jekyll, morph into Mr. Hyde? Surely he was just lost in the damaged corners of the mind and needed someone to help him find the path again. After all he had stood with me, wiped my tears, wrapped his strong arms around me and made me feel secure. How selfish is it to not be there in return?
The culmination of my sweet sixteen birthday was watching a group of guys pass out, as I dipped my toes into the pool and felt the first cracks appear in my mind and leak any innocence into the cool waters. I prayed like hell he woke up to get me home in time for curfew. There was no way I wanted to rouse the monster.
Wednesday, April 30, 2014
Stand Where I Stood: Bittersweet
“Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you…”
The first lines of the familiar song roused me awake. I was asleep, it was my birthday, and this was really not what I had in mind for my Sweet Sixteen. It was nineteen minutes after nine on that day in the middle of July. Exactly sixteen years prior was the moment I took my first breath. The symbolism of the moment was not lost at all on my mother and once the fog of sleep had cleared not on me either. She and my baby brother stood next to my bed, mom sat down and presented me with a card from both her and my brother. Proclaiming that in honor of my sixteenth birthday I would have one present every hour for sixteen hours! The blowout of all birthdays had been the summer before when she threw a surprise party for me and invited both my closest girlfriends and my puppy love boyfriend (that I had for a hot minute) AND the guys he was friends who were also my friends! My first co-ed party and the girls were going to stay the night… but the boys lingered a bit too long and we ended up in a huge water fight between the girls and mom versus the boys. It was amazing and I still have friends that reference that party. Looking back now I am glad I had one last party where I oblivious to the dark things that existed and could haunt you in the night and it was the best party ever.
This was my sweet sixteen and I would be lying if I said I was not a bit disappointed that some elaborate plan had not been hatched for this particular rite of passage. That summer was different than the one before, something lost on me at the time; I was not really speaking to any of my friends. He dominated all of my time and did not like any of my friends; especially my best friend Hana* she was the worst of them all as far as he was concerned. The only friend on the approved list was Alena* who he liked because she liked him, a lot more than I realized at the time, and she would smoke pot with him; something I refused to do. He had slowly and surgically cut me off from the life blood of a teenager, friends, so deliberately that I had not really noticed. Alena was always there so I was not really lonely and he was always there; the summer seemed to be flying by so I did not have a real sense of missing anyone.
My mother’s enthusiasm was contagious, she was rarely this excited as a medical professional it took a lot breach the calm of her well-practiced professional exterior. She seemed almost giddy and that made me smile. I got up, locked myself in the bathroom, and splashed cold water on my face. I checked a greenish yellow bruise under my arm; thankfully low enough I could still wear sleeveless shirts. Gently touching I winced in pain I applied a layer of Arnica gel. I was lucky I had long been a ballet dancer so the smell of different salves on my skin did not create any suspicion because I was always repairing some blister or raw spot on my toes from dancing in pointe shoes, or sore muscles from pushing myself a bit harder. Just a drop of White Flower Balm, barely a drop, to give it a bit of heat and help it relax a little because it hurt to take deep breaths. The bruise on my hip down and around to my back side was fading now and looked more like a shadow than a bruise.
These bruise checks had become a necessary evil, if my parents saw one the stories to explain a weird bruise were limited. I did bruise easily though and it was that fact that I told myself when a new mark would appear; that it hadn’t been a blow or grasp too hard I was just an easy bruiser, really it wasn’t so bad as all that. (Always telling myself not to be a drama queen) Looking back at all the justifications I made for it all and everything to come I can’t help but wonder if anyone who happens upon this might think I am crazy. That which is so clear now should have been obvious then; obvious to anyone, but life is rarely obvious at the time and people see what they want to. No one wanted to see this happening, I didn’t even want to see it, and so no one did.
My mother’s voice rang out from the other room, she was growing impatient. I flushed the toilet and the White Flower Balm cotton ball down with it. Pulled my sloppy pajamas back on and sleepy but alert walked out and into our open plan living room. She and my brother, who was also excited, sat there with the first gift. I hadn’t opened it yet! All this build up I couldn’t help but laugh when it was a package of socks I had said I needed a couple weeks before. We ate some breakfast, I recall cheese grits because they are one of my favorite sinful foods. I got up to get in the shower; he was coming over, as was Alena. Standing in the shower I let the water wash over me warming sore muscles and cried. I was greatly disappointed my father had taken a trip to see my family members, including my dearest grandmother in Texas. I could not understand missing your daughter’s “Sweet Sixteen” and I was hurt by it. In the midst of my own private and secret hell and I was pissed off about my dad missing a silly birthday. Clearly teenage priorities were at work here.
I was almost ready when Alena arrived. She sat on the couch in the den and I came out she had a balloon and some present and card we giggled about but I do not remember now. Unfortunately she could not stay so she made her exit. I had just finished my hair and makeup when I heard the sound of his beater of a truck pull up on the curb. Hurriedly I finished. He did not like waiting on me, especially if it meant my parents would try to make small talk. Sliding into place in front of the door as my mother opened it I had just made it. I was wearing a new white, jean, mid-drift vest that I had buttoned up like a shirt (it was the 90’s), my Wrangler jeans, and my boots. Hair in place, outfit appropriate, flawless makeup, all the boxes ticked. My performance smile plastered on my face, he stood there looking at the ground; with his right arm extending to the door frame and propping himself up. Without moving his head he looked up over his sunglasses and I saw him scan me, a smile coming to his lips. Not the Jekyll and Hyde smile but one he gave when nothing had gone wrong… yet. This was the okay smile.
Relived I ushered him in, he was wearing dirty jeans, a shirt that the sleeves had been so deeply cut out of that the side of his body showed, printed on the shirt was something about “Peckers” and some double entendre about the chickens that starred on the shirt and the slang usage of the word pecker. Crestfallen, and struggling to hide it, it was time for my next gift. It was a puffed heart necklace that made a tinkling sound of tiny bells inside it when you shook it; it was quite the in thing at the time and I was thrilled. As I leaned over across the love seat to show him, I smelled that heady scent of pot, mingling with his Camel cigarettes and a fresh coat of Drakkar (he must have applied in the truck) I knew immediately he was higher than the Space Needle downtown. Working quite hard to not react at all to his complete and utter indifference to my new necklace I pulled myself back across the couch.
If my mother recognized the smell on him, she was lady enough to not mention it to me or to my knowledge to him. Thankfully she also did not bat an eyelash at his choice of attire. I on the other hand was embarrassed but knew by this point not to show it and definitely not to mention it. My mother looked over expectantly at him, this was clearly her segue to his gift presentation. When I glanced in her direction she was staring at him intently and she moved her head forward slightly and raised her eyebrows. Cutting my eyes back to him he was staring back at my mother and he raised one eyebrow.
“Maybe at the restaurant then?” she asked cheerfully.
Nothing was said in return.
My baby brother wanted me to ride in the car with him. Like an insane person I thought we might all ride in one vehicle… looking to him I got a look back that said not gonna happen. Letting my brother down entirely I went and climbed into the truck. We were all going out to eat at my favorite restaurant and I was looking forward to it. He fell into traffic behind my mother and had turned on some Alice in Chains. My mantra reverberating in my head, be small, be quiet, no sudden moves, he was high and that made him unpredictable. The truck fell silent as he turned off the radio and looked at me. He said that he had an idea of something special I could do for my birthday… for him. I furrowed my brow and glanced at him; he pointed to his lap and said something about always wanting to have me do that while he drove around. I must have looked appalled because he started laughing and said he was totally joking. Breathing a sigh of relief as we were now directly behind my mother and then to my horror he lit his pipe up right there at a stop light, still behind my mother. I rolled down my window and leaned against the door frame.
Pulling into the restaurant parking lot I hopped out of the truck; he took another long toke on his pipe and my audible sigh received an unwelcoming look. It was my birthday but you wouldn’t think there was anything special about it from the way he was dressed, or acting, or treating me. I don’t know what I expected but this was not a “Sweet Sixteen”. Treading the line, and I knew it, I shot him a look that questioned the wisdom of his smoking pot, in public, with my mother and brother just a few hundred feet away. The look I got back could have wilted flowers; clearly he did not care what I thought.
This getting high to be around my parents, thing was kind of new. We had all gone to see Independence Day (the movie) on the 3rd of July, so did most of the world it seemed that day. Finding a seat where my family and the two of us could all sit together was difficult. We managed to find a place, but it was less than ideal. He sat in the last seat against the wall. He got up a few times throughout the movie and each time he came back smelling like cigarettes and pot and somewhere in the middle of the movie he put in a dip and proceeding to spit into his empty coke cup. At some point I had stopped reaching for his hand when he would come back; he reached over and grabbed it and squeezed hard. Whispering against my neck that he loved me he just couldn’t stand my family
“They’re boring, you know?”
I simply sighed; I wasn’t going to start a fight in defense of my family right there in the middle of a movie. He leaned against the wall and fell asleep. It was a great day.
Inside the restaurant there was another gift following giving our orders. It was a beautiful chain necklace. Mom again looked at him, smiling, he just stared at her. So she prompted
“Now would be a good time to do presents don’t you think?”
Oh God, she just assumed he would get me something. I held my breath not knowing what was about to happen. Knowing he wouldn’t expose himself entirely to my family I still worried what he might say later. He finally broke the silence and said
“Um… I had planned on giving it to her a little later; when we go out tonight.”
It was summer but where were we going on a Monday? I looked at him funny and he said something about taking me out to dinner later. Mom was satisfied with the answer and moved on. She would occasionally try to engage him in conversation but he was so wasted there really wasn’t any talking to him. Mostly we chattered to each other about whatever was going on at the time. Until she mentioned Hana’s name and he kicked me under the table, I did not even know he was listening. She asked me how she was doing and if I had talked to her. The answer of course was no, I hadn’t seen anyone but Alena and him and his friends. I muttered something about her being really busy with her boyfriend.
“Y’all should do a double date! Do kids do that anymore? Or am I totally uncool for suggesting it?”
I could literally feel the heat of his skin rising when I interrupted mom
“Yeah no that’s not really a thing people do anymore.”
To be continued…
*Names have been changed in order to keep identifying and concerned parties private.