I want to say that I am sorry, sorry that I could not demand, that I was too niave, too young to articulate what it means to be man, what I should have demanded from you. I lived across the hall from you. We were friends, I think. I watched you from the lounge. You walked up the stairs; I could hear you coming. You took your shirt off, wrapped it around your neck, stood by the water fountain and looked at me – I smiled and turned myself back into my books, my words. I felt your eyes against my skin, like a scar, a mark. I watched you, in the black. That night, you wandered out into the hall, drunk. I remember your boxers that hung limp from your hips, the torn collar of your shirt, the sounds that echoed from your room. You asked me how I was, what I was doing. I told you. And I asked you.
“Not good.”
“Why?”
“Just not good.”
You were untouchable. Your eyes were dark and vague. The girls talked about you as if you were a ghost, something they had imagined, something they could not grasp, that would not stay twisted around their fingers.They admired you, adored you. And I adored you too, how you looked, the strong and distant way you carried yourself, how you spoke, that charm – you could make me blush and shiver by simply looking my way. We talked about Africa together – you lived there last semester, and I remember that I felt something in your words. Your eyes brightened in mine and I felt something, there, something that I held on to, desperately, that I would hold for a year. You told me, then, that I was beautiful, that you felt something too. And I was happy that you cared for me.
In memory of that something I felt on the couch with you, I didn’t object when you walked into my room and locked the door behind us. I didn’t object as you ripped the clothes off of me, as you threw me into the wall, held me against the mattress you had tossed onto the floor. I didn’t once tell you no. You told me I was sexy, and that you had been waiting for it – for this, for over a year. And then you left. There was blood on the walls from where you had broke my nose. It was an accident. You loved me hard, hard because you cared. I couldn’t leave my room for 2 days, except to run. I ran for miles, miles and miles. Before I reached the hall, I took my shirt off, so you could see – the dark circles where your hands had touched my ribs. I convinced myself that you cared about me. You had felt it to, on the couch. You were just rough, a bit too rough that first time. You told me that you liked me, and I pretended that it meant more. You wanted me, demanded me. And I answered. You walked through my door and always, wanted me. And I answered, because I was a good girl, and I did as I was told. I let you force my face down, let you wrap your hands around my throat. I let you walk through my door again and again, drunk and angry.
Once, I told you to leave and you raised your hands, tore my clothes off and began hitting me, again and again. I laughed because I couldn’t do anything else. You told me you were sorry, once, and I forgave you, once.
The next day, you took my curling iron and pressed into the flesh of my back. Because you were bored and feeling “kinky.” I wore your hands on my skin. I held you. Everyone knew. No one said anything. I couldn’t leave it, leave you. I tried, but you lived down the hall. I couldn’t escape you. I couldn’t lock my door. I couldn’t ignore your calls. My heart stopped every time your name entered my mind. I imagined what it would feel like when you realized what you were to me, when you realized what I should mean to you – the first man who touched me, the first man who put his hands upon me and told me he wanted me. I thought it meant more than it was. You called me a toy, some kind of play thing. And you thanked me before you turned and walked away. Every time. I only regret that I couldn’t find my voice, that I couldn’t tell you what a monster you were, how you ripped me apart, how you assulted every fiber of my being, how I sacrificed my sanity, my body, my innocence to you, how you degraded and broke me – I prayed once, when you were on top, your hands around my throat, that you would actually finish the job so that I wouldn’t have to live every day in fear of you and what a future with you would mean. And then I moved away. My words and my talents took me away from you, took me into the mountains where I found a good man, a good life. I found love and hope and happiness – I learned what it meant to be cherished.
And you called me, you found the nerve to call me after 2 years. I listened to your message in the storage room of a restaurant, thinking it was someone else, and you told me that you cared about me, that you would always be there, waiting, that you would find me, and it would be just like it was only better. I dare you to. I dare you. I’m marrying the love of my life in 5 months and I dare you to find us. I’m not the young, niave, weak and starved girl I was. I will take my hands, my words and I will bury you in sky and stone, the mountains I have climbed since I left the very memory of you and your name. I dare you to find me, to try and touch me. You cannot touch me, I look into the past and I see only a shadow of you. I am twisting the light around you, watching you collapse into dust. I hope that you find yourself buried in the past, in the light I wrap around you. I hope that you are bound to the earth by the weight of your obscene desires and cruelty. I have risen above you, beyond you. I have traced my scars in ink and I have learned how to imagine, to hope again.
Goodbye boy of Babcock hall.I only wish that you live long enough to realize who you really are – that those around you live to realize what you are, the past you carry, the past that was me, stitched into your flesh.
