[M] Whirda's Poetry & Prose

[PepsiWhirda]

Exit Wound

One time I told you to hit me. I told you to mean it, even though I never thought you could. You took off your belt & broke it on my skin. I apologized, but the words tasted like sand & metal. Like maybe it was you who should have been apologizing. It’s OK, you said. It was falling apart anyway. I was too naive to realize you weren’t just talking about the belt.

Two important changes came over our relationship that night. I learned you could mean it, & you learned I would take it.

It was the first time anyone had ever hit me like that. It wasn’t sexy, or pleasurable, or anything like porn makes it look. It felt like you broke off a little piece of me, a little piece of sanctity, & kept it like a trophy to wear on a necklace or stuff in your wallet, & show to your buddies across a table of poker chips & Miller Lite.

The welt on my back faded to a little pink scar just below my right shoulder blade. I couldn’t even see it unless I got real close to the bathroom mirror in just the right lighting, but it felt like an exit wound, a gaping hole that wouldn’t heal & kept spitting blood & wax & rot into the sink.

The whole thing wasn’t polarizing like I expected it to be. We never talked about it. We just settled back into our silly staccato relationship, our tiptoeing parody of pretense & convenience where the only authentic act was when you fell asleep right after we fucked. It wasn’t what I wanted. It wasn’t love letters, & flowers on Tuesdays, & foot rubs at the end of a long day, but it was enough. I was comfortable.

It wasn’t until weeks later that I started to notice the signs. How you looked at me almost like you were hungry, your eyes gnawing me like raw meat. How your hands felt heavier, angrier, on my arms, between my legs, across my neck. How your fingers tried to press right through my skin, only surrendering when I flinched away from you & whimpered my pain into the tangled bedsheets.

I think that’s when you stopped loving me. Whatever I started that night cut me off from you, untethered & left to drift in the inky limbo of space. I was the dirt under your nails, the boss you hated at work, just another thing you tolerated because I looked good in pictures.

I was damaged to you, the sort of damaged you don’t bother trying to repair, like when you wrecked your car, & the cost to fix it was more than just buying a new one. Every day I felt like you were getting ready to sell me for parts. I felt the promise of abandonment looming over me, hanging fat & dripping above my head, scudding inexorably toward me.

The next time you hit me, I didn’t ask for it. It was a casual, practiced swipe, a thunderclap that left me sprawled across the kitchen floor. It was sudden & brutal & somehow not at all surprising, &, just like the first time, you didn’t apologize. You just mumbled I’ll see you later, & you were gone before my ears stopped ringing.

I thought maybe it was an isolated incident. Maybe I’d done something, said the wrong thing, somehow fucked up & driven you to it. I nitpicked & scrutinized my body language, my tone of voice, my clothes. I didn’t break up with you, didn’t leave, didn’t pack a bag & run. Being alone still scared me more than you.

When you came back, you weren’t yourself. You were a hornet, a freight train, all fists & feet & beer-thick profanity. You were the bull & I was the china shop. I know you don’t remember how you broke your hand on my jaw, how you upturned all the furniture, how you turned my skin to purple & black & lead. I know I shouldn’t have asked you where you’d been. I knew better than that.

I don’t blame you for the fractured wrist, for the internal bleeding, for the shreds of skin you carved off of my face. I don’t blame you for the thunderclap, or your gnawing eyes, or the exit wound that wouldn’t heal. That still hasn’t.

The doctors tell me my body is a crime scene, that the sooner I talk the sooner they can find whoever did this to me. They don’t know it was you. They shake their heads & cluck in disbelief when I insist that it was all my fault. They don’t understand that I was broken long before you broke me. I was a ticking thing, a slow alarm, an impending disaster. I was kindling & gasoline & matches.

I miss you. I feel our separation keenly. It is a tangible thing, & it hurts. It hurts me more than your hands ever could. I’ve never been any good at being alone.

I miss you, baby. I’ll be home soon.