strangulation

Physical Violence is the elephant in my mind. I’m not sure how I’m supposed to feel or think about it so I don’t.

The first time James got violent I was asking him questions. Specifically questions about his pro-gun stance. While I mostly shared his views, some of his arguments didn’t make sense to me. He had just gotten news of a financial defeat so I should have stayed silent. But at the time I wasn’t good at shutting the fuck up. Eventually I learned, but it didn’t really help.

So he got upset and left the room. I followed him. I was extremely clingy. Later I learned not to be clingy but that didn’t help either. He told me to Go Away and I said No. He said if I didn’t leave he’d fucking crush me and I said go ahead.

Then he pushed me really hard like… I don’t think I understood how strong men are until that moment. I thought they were more or less like me. But it was supernatural. I don’t know what happened except that I ended up on some stairs with my arm cut open from wrist to elbow cause it got caught on the metal door latch.

I guess I was in shock & crying hysterically. James was like a god to me. At the time it seemed like hurting your wife was horrifically wrong. Now it doesn’t seem so wrong to me. But at first it was shocking and I was crying hysterically.

James told me I had to stop crying but I didn’t. He dragged me across the floor and sat on top of me with hands around my neck looking at me with this crazy look in his eyes. I thought he was going to kill me. I was screaming hoping the neighbors would hear me. I screamed for Slippers and she came. Then James got off of me. Later on though Slippers would just run and hide.

Afterwards was even more confusing. Writing about the incident now, I feel like I am a baby for even whining about it but at the time it felt earth shattering. Like I’d entered a new reality and the world as I knew it no longer existed. I thought James would be sorry but he wasn’t. He didn’t seem to think it was a big deal that my whole arm had turned yellow from bruising. If I tried to bring it up what had happened he would say “Well why did you say this? Why did you say that? What did you say 5 sentences before that? You don’t remember? If you can’t even remember then how can we talk about it? What angle were you standing at? What socks were you wearing 3 days earlier? These facts are important.”

There was no remorse just an endless string of questions about details surrounding the day that I couldn’t remember and when I would get frustrated with those questions he said he needed those details to make sense of things. The problem wasn’t him pushing me, it was all these little things I’d said and done which made him push me.

And the following years were all about that. Don’t use this word, use that word. This phrasing is the problem. Stating things as a question is the problem. I would read more and more books about how mens’ minds worked and try to change my tone, my phrasing, my facial expression. None of it helped but I always felt I was on the cusp of knowing what he needed and being able to give it to him.

Later on, maybe 4 or so years later, cheating came into play too. Cheating is the vocalist. It grabs all your attention. Violence is more like bass and drums. It hits you in the reptile centers. That is why I don’t know how to process it or even if it merits processing.

The first time it happened I thought it was a really big deal. Over time it became more commonplace to where I feel like a petty little bitch for writing about it. I don’t know if it matters or not. Why would it matter? People hurt all the time.

At the time I wrote this song, I always wore boots. Generally white boots, since brown boots represented drudgery and losing track of your life’s purpose, and black boots represented tyrany and abuse. They couldn’t have heels in case I needed to run for my life. They needed thin souls, so the pounding of my feet against hard surfaces would stimulated my electrical systems. And the toes had to be pointy- to represent fire.

Pants needed to be flexible and yielding enough to kick a predator in the chest and then escape over a tall fence. But sweat pants were out of the question, since they dampened my electrical circuits. Shorts were impossible, since they triggered water-attacks (the feeling that I was dying of thirst.) Skirts were less than ideal, since they make you reluctant to hang upside down or climb a pole, but it was generally skirts that I ended up with anyway. At least they let your legs be free (I hated it when pants touched my legs), and generally you only need to climb trees at nighttime anyway, when the bad guys are all out.

I needed shirts that would cover my shoulders and the back of my neck, which I could not bear to have exposed. But no turtlenecks- they brought to mind strangulation. And no sweaters, since I feared they would absorb the electricity from my body. Multiple layers of fabric covering my heart were a must and I preferred it to be something hard and form-fitting, like a suit of armor, which frequently led to me wearing extra layers of underwear on top of my shirts.

I always wore a hat, even indoors and even at night. I didn’t feel safe without one, and it needed to have the widest brim possible, which generally meant I ended up wearing fussy outdoor-wedding hats covered in lace and silk flowers, a look I didn’t much care for. And last but not least, I needed a gigantic cross pendant, to keep anyone from trying to steal my soul. Later, I switched from a cross to a letter A.

Download MP3: You Ain’t the Man