Dear Asshole

(trigger warning – please don’t read if you are not in a safe place)

Dear Asshole,

I wonder, when you kiss your wife, if you remember what it felt like to shove your tongue into my mouth…your teeth hitting mine as you demanded I open my lips more..

I remember.

I can still taste your saliva…I sometimes feel as though my tongue is swelling…as it betrays me when I seal my lips and refuse any entry…even to love.

But you told me you don’t recall…so I imagine you kiss your wife without guilt or shame…

I wonder, when you look at her…if you remember when you stood with me and looked…and looked and looked…while I squeezed my eyes shut and held my breath.

I wonder this as I hide under my blanket at night…and shut out any light…as I press my hand against my eyes even if there is no one looking at me.

You remember that one…you told me so…except you told me it was normal and, for a teeny-tiny second, I believed you.

But it’s not normal…for me to hide my body from intimacy…for me to look in the mirror and shudder…no matter how many layers I have on.

So I imagine you feel comfortable in your own skin…after all, you’ve moved on.

I wonder…when your wife touches you…if you remember what you made me do to you…

I remember.

I still smell you.  I can’t get rid of the images of me kneeling at your feet…I can’t stop feeling your breath…I can’t stop all my senses from experiencing what was for you, a minor event…

My senses do not allow me to feel pleasure without fear.

Do you know what it is like to be overcome by fear with any expression of pleasure?

No, you wouldn’t know.

I imagine you let yourself experience pleasure because you think you deserve it.

I really wonder though…if you remember how I turned you down…and how you didn’t seem to care…

I wonder…if I had known it was because you no longer needed me…because there were others who could take my place…if I would have been so quick to stand up for myself.

Because now I feel guilty.

I feel guilty that I didn’t protect others…that I didn’t tell.  That I let you go on…

And that guilt makes me that crazy, obsessed person who can’t stop talking now.

I’m practically screaming it from the rooftops…twenty goddamn years later…when it can no longer do anything to stop the fucked up life I was forced to lead.

Oh I know you think I am crazy…I know you think I shouldn’t hold on to this…

I know you think you couldn’t possibly have screwed up everything for me.

But you’re wrong, Asshole.

You’re wrong about everything.

See, I lost my childhood because of you.

I lost my ability to trust.

I lost my ability to connect.

I lost my ability to live free.

I continue to suffer…every fucking day.

The worst part is that you took them away from me…

You made them have to choose a side…and they did choose…you.

So damn you, Asshole.

And damn the wife you never told.

Because I have nothing left to lose.

You do.

And if I sign this letter…the way I should sign it…

You will.