As always, I am lost. I never have the words for you. I lose my powers of speech as easily and dramatically as I lose my heart, and always to the same ruinous effect. But if I lose my words, I lose myself, and so here I am, staring at screen, casting around for some semblance of the control I prize so highly.

I will state the obvious first.

I am angry with you, very angry. I can’t tell if you tread around me so carefully because you’re afraid I’ll break again, or because you’re afraid I’ll try to break you. It is at least somewhat ironic that on the same night you accused me of plotting retribution against you, I took the ultimate act of retribution against myself. I’m the one who should be afraid of myself¸ not you.

So that leaves us with one option: that you’re afraid for me. Don’t be. I never asked for your pity, even when I wanted it. I don’t want your sympathy. What I did was not a cry for help. It was a deliberate attempt to end suffering. Consider it a botched mercy killing.

And I didn’t do it because of you, either. I don’t see the point in discussing my reasons. I had them, and that’s enough.

But I’m still here and you’re still here and once more, I’m at a loss. I can’t hate you. I’ve tried and tried but you don’t deserve it. It’s not your fault that you don’t love me anymore. Maybe someday I can convince myself that it’s not my fault either, but I don’t plan on crossing my fingers.

I don’t understand, and I hate that. I can’t forget the things you said. I am not that woman, the woman you spoke of that night is a stranger to me. The woman you spoke of thrives on anger and bitterness, and all I want—all I have ever wanted—is love. I don’t understand how you could misjudge me so badly after all the times you boasted that you understood me so well. I don’t even understand myself. I don’t understand why I want to throw things at you and scream at you and tell you that you’re a rotten bastard when not only do I not actually believe you are a rotten bastard, but know for a fact that I would never forgive myself for hurting you.

If this is growing up, I’d like to go back.

I feel so very small. I am diminished. Something in me has died, whether by my hand or yours or the one before you, or possibly the one before that. I am beaten and broken and I can no longer cry, I can no longer scream. I have lain in a bed surrounded by nurses who never learned my name and I have cried out to God, to Goddess, to whatever name I could think of. Nobody answered. There was only the white wall and the empty screens of wordless machines.

Perhaps I am smaller because I am concentrated. I have been burned and what remains is pure. I am simply myself. For now, for good, that is all I can be. It is all I have left, and it is enough, it is all I need.

I don’t need you.

With affection,

always

me.

Advertisement