Gretel Says.

The receiver smashed into plastic cradle, a resounding silence filling the space inside my ear where your voice sat only a moment ago, I say: “Please don’t.”

Ringing with the echo of all the things I left behind when I asked you to leave such a long time ago, my ears begin to burn: a red hot awkwardness crawling in through the canal, kicking at the drum, slipping down the tube into my throat until my tongue smacks of your tinny aftertaste. Trying to defend myself to walls staring blankly at me, I say: “It was nothing. It meant nothing.”

Stomping my feet, I am surprised by the protein-crack of eggshells, the same ones I tiptoed over when you raised your voice too loud. To compensate for all the noise, I whisper: “Shh, you don’t understand.”

Between the accusation and the unforgiveness, you didn’t leave much time for me to tell you: “I can explain!” Between the distrust and suspect, you didn’t leave much time for me to say: “I came back because I thought I loved you.”

Staring straight ahead, pinpoint eyes glazed with the familiar slick of liberally slathered guilt, I am leading down the same path where I’ve already dropped a line of homeward bound crumbs. “It’s all so familiar,” I muse.

But the me I met when I left you, the me you decided wasn’t for you, she’s kicking at my gut, raising her voice, punching my throat – quick jabs bringing out indistinguishable sounds: a groan, a growl, a bark.

The me I met when I left you, she’s holding a road map. On the map, there’s a clearly defined line. The line? It’s leading me in the opposite direction of you.

The me I met, she says: “This isn’t about you.”

xoxo,
M.L. H’art

Badly Drawn Eyeliner

Flipped ponytail, flippant remarks, she barges in the front door thickening the room with cheap body spray and naiveté. Drawing attention to badly drawn eyeliner, swiping a finger over mascara too thick for soppy eyelashes, the green shadow a stolen treasure from the bottom of her mother’s make up bag, she cracks gum and smiles bravely.

Inside, inside she’s nervous, her stomach marching lines of nausea up and down her esophagus, her thoughts a quickly confused jumble of would-haves, should-haves translated into laughter; laughter, trill and twisting – a sure sign of an inability to relegate feelings in a situation she’s not comfortable in.

The surface piercing in the exact same place as her friend’s, the mark of best friends forever – the mark they’ll both regret in four years when it’s pushed through soft skin and left a red, sore scar on a chest bone too embarrassing to reveal in low cut shirts.

Peroxide hair and grease-dark roots means she’s not slept at home in days and the cracked foundation collecting in the crevice below the piercing in her nose shows she’s not washed her face, either.

Filling dead air with puffy words, the occasional twenty-five cent vocabulary back flip proof she’s not nearly as vacant as the stereotype she perpetuates, the room is the confused energy of a confused little girl.

Sliding cell phone, giggling at sly text messages, “what?!” the insultingly effervescent reply to nearly every topic of conversation not held inside her phone.

I have to remember, I was her once; I have to remember, I’m not her now.

I smile kindly, look her in the eye, examine her discomfort, relish in my strong confidence, my clean hair, my defined standard of expectation of those considered friends. These markers of personality hang neatly around me – an aura of calm.

Her weak words and little looks of insecurity compliment my assuredness; a learned confidence is a gift worth being patient for.

xoxo

M.L. H’art

Conversations with Myself (Canto II)

before it all got lost up in the mess he said not all men are bad and i am not like your dad | i will hold you even though you’re slightly mad | i am not a man who will ever break you | we had pennies in our pockets | we had hope in our eyes | he said girl you’ve got a million different faces | so why’d you put on that disguise | well you can take what you want | cause i’ve got nothing |

Sliding the brush out of the tube – a careful twisting, a slow, sure extraction – I swipe eyelashes, staring myself down.

Blink, blink.

“I know better.”

Mirrored peptalk, blood red mouth pursed, shining pearls biting bottom lip.

“Why’d I spend so much time dressing up in disguise?” flipping clothes off the bed, pressing silky shirt against soft belly, bare breasts. The shirt tossed aside for another and another. The perfect outfit: confidence, actualized.

A bobby pin spread wide, feet pushed apart, legs open, hair snug and slipped in, forced tightly. Wet hairspray.

Spritz, spritz.

“There’s masochism in making the same mistake over. The hurt, expected – no different than past experience: the pain a little deeper, a little harder, a little faster.”

Wincing, a zipper pulled taught across skin, leaving marks on the flesh. Slipping toes into shoes one size too small, a firm fit. Pointed heel digging into carpet, pressing.

“That pain, it felt good.” Fingers fondling the clasp, choking beads around white skin, pulling tight, pinching. Just enough.

Looking in the mirror, slender hands fingering beads.

“No.” A little more, please. Choking beads pulled tighter, a breath escaping parted painted lips, a quick gasp.

“I’m just fine on my own,” smoothing shirt over skin, touching clad legs, pressing away worry, welcoming trouble.

One last look in the mirror, a small smile, eyes sparkling. A laugh, breathy.

“I’m just fine on my own.”

Slammed door, clicking heels. Confidence: self actualized.

xoxo

M.L. H’art

Rotting Red Pepper.

I wish I’d learned the lesson the first time, the tenth time, even. I wish any of him wouldn’t make small talk with me at the bus stop, the bar, the bank, the grocery store on Sunday when I’m in my pajamas; I wish I’d have the nerve to say: “No thank you.”

I’d bow my head, pull my coat closed tighter, slip by him as my basket full of vegetables and dry cat food smacked him in the thigh. I’d forgo the idle chit chat and false niceties, breeze by the awkward first fumblings when – you and I – we’d determine the boundaries of how far things should go and put a stop to the unfortunate mornings when I’d wish you’d stayed at my place so I could kick you out.

I wish when a glass of wine was set before me I could drink it without the anticipation of the next glass; I’d savour it, breath it in, taste it – really taste it – swallow slowly. I would not slurp impatiently to find the bottom of the glass so I could tell the waiter: “Oh perhaps just one more.”

I wish my cunt didn’t smell of you, didn’t betray my mind into translating touch into sentiment or forgive conscience for numbness. 

I wish I were able to find me, in all of this, buried between the rotting red pepper and his thigh, the cork and my bedsheets; I wish when I found me I liked who was there.
 
 xoxo
 
 M.L. H’art

Working Girl.

Daydreaming, she misses the point of the conversation entirely. “Hmm..?” she half asks, half sings. “Were you talking to me?”

“The economic outcome of the fiscal year is dependent on the turnaround success of fundraising efforts and should be quantifiably measured and cross referenced to years past so we have a comprehensive understanding of our financial situation…” his voice fades as she thinks about books, piles of them, each aching to be cracked, tired spines releasing the tension of too many years sitting unappreciated on lonely shelves, an erotic snap of the pages as each whispers a story so unique, so beautiful, written entirely for her eyes at that very moment…

“Don’t you agree?” he asks, shaking his head fervently, as if only to convince himself.

“Why yes, of course. We agree.” A chorus of businessmen cheer in response, all looking to one another for confirmation. She too nods to his tempo, watching the flap of aging skin under his chin wag in agreeance, up and down, up and down. None of them, she’s sure, has flipped through the pages of a book not devoted to swashbuckling business in years. She can see the one track of their minds and starts to get dizzy from all the laps.

“Right then, moving on. It’s in our best interest to move forward on the Zareski account by militantly invoicing him. That money won’t collect itself, you know,” he chuckles to himself. She imagines he sits in his office chuckling at his own brilliance often, fingers interlocked behind his head, feet up on his desk, the stench of unwashed socks permeating the room, the broken air conditioning vent sputtering warm air, making the frail strands of thinning hair dance about his head.

He’s looking directly at her.

“Yes, yes. I’ll get right on that,” she pretends to write important notes into her stenographer’s pad using shorthand, but a shorthand only she can understand. What he doesn’t know is that she’s making her grocery list for the week. Zi, mt really means zucchini, meat not Zareski and militant.

“You’re a real asset to the team you know, you’re going places,” he says to her. “I can just tell.” He spans his arms across the length of the luncheon table in showy bravado: “Director of Global Communications.” She hears “Glorified Secretary.”

He looks so proud of himself. “Hey, what do you think about that?” he asks as he jabs at her ribs with the tip of his pen.

She flinches and practices her plastic smile. “That would be nice, very nice.”

She turns to her notepad and starts drawing circles and lines, a map of her boredom, while he blabbers about the evolution of the next campaign, a campaign for the real working man, he says as he wipes spittle from the corner of his mouth, white and dry, stuck in the crevices of his wrinkles.

“That should about wrap up our meeting don’t you think gentlemen?” she asks, hopeful to escape before the back slapping show of machismo and ego-stroking begins.

“Yar har,” they guffaw in unison, like the gabble of geese all calling in response, but for no real reason other than to outdo one another.

“Why yes, my dear. The rest’s all business talk if you know what I mean,” he leans toward her and winks as if she doesn’t already know how, once she’s left the room, they’ll talk about the size of the waitress’ tits, her ass in the fitted black dress pants she chose to wear today, how they banged their wives while watching the game last night.

“Right then. I’ll see you back at the office.” She packs up her files and daydreams, neatly stacks them under her arm and heads for the door.

He grabs her shoulder and says: “Great work, doll. You’re doing a great job.” She can smell the rye and gingers he had for lunch, a hint of the steak he devoured.

“Thank you, sir,” she chokes. She can feel his eyes on her ass as she walks away from the table. She is more angered than degraded.

A pedestal, Steinem said, is as much a prison as any other confined space. She tells herself this over and over as she walks away, fighting the urge to place her hands over her bottom in sheer embarrassment of the fact they are not gifted with a vagina and some sensitivity.

She is the trophy office chick, the eye candy, the boss’ meow, the reason why men talk too much when they are around her, spilling secrets she has no use for, other than to entertain them later into giving more money to the foundation when, suddenly, she speaks intelligently of their manly business strategies, muscular mergers, ooh, handsome acquisitions.

This show, she tells herself, is exactly what bull shit smells like.

xoxo

M.L. H’art

Dear Alice.

Dear Alice;

I can’t help but believe my attempt to write to you is trite – a thank you letter lost in a sea of a thousand others, connecting us unknowingly through your creative non-fiction.

You’ve told my story and now I’m unsure I need to. How many rape victim stories can the book store shelf hold? How many survivors will read them all, each a part of a seemingly disconnected series, the book covers a different color, the fonts un-matching, the photographs on the back each of a different girl, all telling the same story?

When will my story and your story and her story become redundant – the repetitive pleas of a hurt unchecked, unhealed, an open wound leaking the puss of a neglected hate?

I feel like by telling you, you are me, and my story is there – inside your words, a little out of order perhaps, but no less important.

I wrote about it once, read it aloud in my creative non-fiction class of twelve other awkward students, each uneasy in the discomfort of being stuck between teenagedom and adulthood, not awkward because the walk between the bus stop and the front door of the house after dark brought on frantic imagined delusions of attack in the street gutters, the type of delusion which forces a girl to plot her escape even though there’s no threat to run from.

As I read it aloud, I too turned red, my cheeks blushing, burning, taking emphasis from the words and instead placing it on my face. I was embarrassed, not for my story, my pain, my hesitation in sharing the hurt of a lost innocence, but because in telling each of those other awkward and uneasy students, I felt as though I expected something from them in return, forced them unwittingly into dealing with the ugly and unavoidable truth of a too often told tragedy.

When I finished, they stared at their desktops, hightops, tops of the heads of the students in front of them. All to save looking at me.

Their language came slowly at first – typical of the uncomfortable linguistic fumbling that comes when…you…just…don’t…know…what…to…say….

Brave. Important. Challenging.

With those words came the looks: the sadness, the sorry, the judgment, the change; change in the way I looked to them, at them; change in the way they dealt with me, talked to me; as if suddenly by saying aloud the words “I was raped” I became fragile, breakable – as though before those words came tumbling out my mouth like tangible markers of my person, I was invincible, indestructible, a typical but naïve twenty something with nothing to hold on to but a dream and some spare bus fare, certainly not the weak and tainted frame of a girl wrecked by the misfortune of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Suddenly wary of my condition, my classmates became careful of me as though an emotional breakdown due to the stress of sharing something so personal would bring forth a torrent of uncontrollable tears. Because really, who wants to deal with that?

My professor was careful in his criticism, suddenly softening his previously demanding editor voice for the simple reason, I’m sure, he suddenly became aware he was a man.

Before class, he discouraged me at first, saying I didn’t have to share if it was too difficult, that he would understand if I chose to workshop something more…digestible…a different piece, perhaps the one we didn’t get all the way through last class?

I laughed and declined gently, politely, and handed him my papers to photocopy for the class to read.

It was four years before I had the vocabulary to write about my rape. The first few attempts hit the page as muddled euphemisms, as if rape were a word not wanted to be read, a word impossible to write, its plosive posture making it stick out on a page like a gaudy neon sign, blinking like the xxx sign in the storefront of the peep house down the street. And like the peep house, the word is both revolting and curious – something someone rarely asks explanation of for fear of learning too much, for fear of being repulsed by the truth – the truth of the girl who sat next to you in second year.

So I didn’t write about it again. I helped others – the survivors, as someone once branded them – tell their story.

I never found comfort in the moniker “survivor” – it indicating there was a harrowing sequence of life threatening obstacles, disease, war, famine, drought, a long lasting struggle resulting in triumph, as though knocking on death’s door were a prerequisite to being raped.

I didn’t die that night. I didn’t let go. I hid in the back of my mind as he slammed my head into the hard tile of the bathroom floor, wedging my shoulders in the small space between the base of the toilet and the ceramic of the bathtub, my neck bent awkwardly at a funny angle, an angle odd enough I couldn’t see his face as he yanked my hair over my eyes and forced his fist into my mouth so no one at the party in the next room could hear if I chose to scream.

I didn’t cry. I didn’t whimper. I only fought back until his grasp started to hurt, until the back of my skull started to bleed. I looked into his eyes once, when he let go of my hair as he came. I have frozen that picture in my mind, could draw it for you if I had that kind of talent.

Years later I would take proverbial scissors and cut that image from the fabric of my memory and sew it stitch by stitch to the quilt of me, alongside other carefully measured squares of personal experience tailored from the cloth of understanding and strength and forgiveness.

I forgive him for his weakness, his unsettled soul, his inability to communicate in a touching, trusting, personable way. I forgive him for the hate seated heavy on his heart and I forgive him for the power of his anger.

I may seem pious and righteous, dealing out forgiveness for that which is out of my control (perhaps out of his control too), sitting upright in my throne waging pity on his head; or perhaps forgiveness is a sign of weakness for not seeking revenge – an eye for an eye so too preaches the story.

But the pain of hate carried in the front pocket of my worn second hand jeans for all those years was heavy, burdensome, tiring. Lugging that kind of weight around every day can wear a girl down, make her tired, stop her from walking too far from home.

In forgiving him, I emptied my pockets and handed my faceless assailant the weight of the responsibility of his action. Karmically, I’ve tossed the ball into his court, although he has no hope – there’s no defense for honest forgiveness.

I’ve given back all he’s ever given me, the only difference is I made it beautiful.

xoxo
M.L. H’art