I; 11.26.22
First things first, I do think you have lied to me regarding whether or not we could actually kiss. That is what I wanted you to think about on the ride over to BART (not ON it). I wanted to hear it from you, rather than calling you out, I really do not enjoy having to “call someone out”, especially not a lover. Does that mean I don’t trust you? Not necessarily, though I feel that might have changed after last night. You’re angry over me not being educated? How do you define education? Should I be indebted to a school? I devote myself to self-education, I am working towards something more formal and that will take time.
I know that you have been through a lot, certain experiences socially that the average Joe might not have gone through. But do you know what it is like to grow up perpetually ill, seeing specialist after specialist? Have you been so sick that your straight A’s fell apart to straight F’s? Drowning in schoolwork, without someone to help, up all night in agonizing pain that radiates outward, until finally vomiting up the sickness in my stomach to fall asleep? Waking up to a beating was my normal. Does my trauma make you uncomfortable? I under-exaggerate it, if anything. Have you ever had someone crying in a loud bar because they pried a little too hard to realize I am not like anyone else they have met?
Do I need therapy when I have found the answers within myself? There is nothing I could do about the past, I no longer ruminate on it, I dragged the fantasies of murdering my abusers into the trash bin of my brain. It never did a thing for me aside from trapping me in situations I thought were better in comparison to the worst of what I have experienced. I pray for those who have harmed me, there is a reason why I loved them, there is a reason why my family is my family at the end of each day, whether or not they have atoned for their sin against me.
Does the pain hold me back? Not so much, they linger in my brain, it remembers every chip of the chisel that sculpted my life, it is hard to not think of how much different my life is from what it once was. I am impossibly grateful for where I am now, for the family that once withheld support from me. Doctors were uncertain of what was wrong with me, my illness like a cancer hiding in another universe, spinning my blood about a centrifuge, it could not reveal my destiny. Have you had a doctor apologize to you? More than once? Because they were clueless as to how it was possible for my system to be so against my existence?
Have you ever cried yourself to sleep having a team of nurses phish for your veins for a half hour? Years later, I obtained an apology from a nurse overlooking when I went in for a different test.
I have walked out of an ER before, severely dehydrated, unable to hold down food for days, after nurses phished for a vein for 20 minutes, then refused to give me water when I could feel my throat tightening from the medication that I had requested them to not administer.
Have you been treated like a drug fiend for sobbing and crying in pain after surgery because the opiates did little for you?
Is my existence inconvenient to the agenda pushed by academia and the privileged few?
Well. Do you think I have not heard it all before? Do you think I was not once a leftist? I was. There was no substance, a frenzy of white people determined to control the language of those who have lived experiences that they cannot even fathom. Have you spoken to women who have been trafficked as children that have been de-platformed for not conforming to the profitable agenda of pimps? Have you any idea how deep the pockets go? There is a reason I have been away from California for years, there is a social contagion that continues to fester, consuming minds away from listening to those who are enduring the burden of memories they cannot erase. From helping those in need. Focusing too much on language that was never theirs to use to begin with.
Why did you tell me you have strong feelings for me? Was it for more than my body? This body is mangled within yet is perceived as a means of privilege, men fall in love with “me” so very easily. I hunger for the beautiful minds of humanity, it is hard to achieve mutuality between anybody when thirst has been the primary motivation for others’ pursuit of me. Could you really have fallen in love with someone as cursed as me, when you live with much anxiety about society that has mostly affected people like me? You believe in the systems that have tried to kill me.
I know why you are not well. I have been there before. While already being sick physically, the mental toll of politics manifests massive amounts of anxiety about a society I already did not have faith in. This is why I am no longer invested in it. I worry for myself first and foremost, because I cannot expect anybody else to do it for me. I cannot expect my family to understand my trauma. I cannot expect you to, either. I do not want to be understood any longer, I want to be seen, I want to be given the room to speak unapologetically about my reality. The masses will pull out their wallets for a demented movie, book, or music—how often do they pull out their wallets for people who have gone through atrocity? They DO exist, that is why I do not shut up. This is why I’m open to sharing my story with anyone willing to listen. With the off chance of being seen. I am susceptible to every facet of abuse for the rest of my life because it is all I have ever known. I feel safe knowing I could reach out for help when I am in desperate need, something I would never take advantage of. That I have had a partner take advantage of before, unbeknownst to me.
Accepting you as a partner, was a big deal for me, I wouldn’t have said yes if I didn’t see a future with you. I thought you could be a productive factor in my growth as a person, I need people like you in my life. But was that even real? Do you say what you mean? What am I to you? I would have been OK taking your dick without it being anything more than that, because I am happy with my life, despite the hardship I deal with. I am a complete person who only wants to continue branching off after spending my entire life getting my roots deep into the Earth, I am everywhere. Firmly planted into this reality that I adore.
I knew what I was getting into, but I don’t think you had any idea of what you were getting into. I laid to sleep, shortly after you propositioned me for a relationship, with a thought I had floating in my head. “Will he hurt me?” I fell right to sleep for only a hair of a second—”Yes.” My eyes popped right open. I felt prepared for you, in that moment, and I was OK with it. I could take it, for you, because you’re sincerely like nobody else.
All I could do was laugh when I was in pain at the hands of someone I loved so dearly. I do not say I am a demon for no reason, I eat up my pain and exude positive energy from it. I am not often possessed, I try to be a faithful servant to my own needs and to the needs of those I love. Does that mean something is wrong with me? Or is something wrong with everybody else if they are so easily possessed by emotions that destroy not only their human connections but themselves?
Maybe I’m a schizo, perhaps I even have every single mental illness. I wouldn’t change it. Would you change that about me? My stigmatized flaws made me, they have allowed me safety, and connection with everybody. I’m only 25, I have a head on my shoulders that successful people praise me for. That people with nothing praise me for. You will never change me, even if that is what I wanted, only may you add to me. Which I thought was your intention, to only add to me.
I love you, I don’t judge you for who you are or your influences. I see everything in your eyes, I could stick my index and thumb in, pull out the beauty trapped within, that is waiting to be released in your future. Everything is all there, and I fell in love with the universe you have inside them.
Would you let me suck on your pulmonary artery like a straw?