Hear My Call

“Lost here in the dark I can’t see my foot to take a step, What’s happening? Oh, this hurts so bad. I can hardly breathe. I just want to leave so… God, please hear my call. I am afraid for me. Love has burned me raw. I need your healing. Please…” Jill Scott

It’s funny (*dry laugh*) how they think that the “I love you” replaces the “I hurt you”. How in the midst of the whoosh, the wallow, the jagged thrust you believe your paltry romantic phrases will replace the stolen articles that have changed my life forever.

In what manner did my cries of “NO” allow you to hear “it’s ok”? Did you imagine that the gluttonous pat of your full belly would replace the hollow cave where untold treasures once laid? Are you so dumb?

Or maybe the simple selfishness of your need ignored the rampant bucking as you pressed your weight, forced your agenda, smiled in contentment as the shreds of a thousand years work crafting delicate and intricate patterns embedded with the words “prize”, “choice”, “love”, “present” binding me forever to the person I granted permission… you pillaged with the careless brunt, disarming my equilibrium.

It’s funny how much I hate you. How I’d carve tunnels in concrete with a spoon if I knew that at the end lay the knife to eunuch you. How I would rip flesh with butter knifes, hacking and sawing, until you felt the physical force of my rage as tiny drops of blood mingle with the numerous tear drops I cried at your expense.

Did you remember what you promised me? How many times did I have to explain it to you for you to understand that this was not what I wanted, that I especially didn’t want it will you. I turn my head to the side. I turn my head away. I let you finish. And you destroyed me.

The mere significance of the moment is nothing to the seed you planted that gestates in a cocoon birthing the only thing that I never expected: Doubt. You took more than a precious privilege with your unwelcomed entry. You took the only thing that lifted my head and helped me to expect more: Trust. You bred your hatred in my heart, disguising it as help; pretending that this would bond me to you irrevocably, when it only makes me what to disembowel you with chopsticks. I’d poke and prod you, jam you, corner you, and then ask you to shower.

It’s funny how I wish your kind never existed. That men like you who take every offering as the potential to seize more as I’m trapped beneath your snare unable to move. I HATE YOU. You, who smile at me with warm eyes after you’ve voided my existence by littering your trash at my temple, plundering your way into hallowed ground. Taking one card from the deck that can’t be renewed or returned.

I’d kill you if vengeance was mine. I’d haunt your very dreams if I knew that karma wasn’t such a bitch. Oh, but dear heart, you will get what’s coming to you. May the fires of hell be stoked to a blistering furnace to welcome your arrival. You, the snake in the grass that waits for my tender ankle to pass by, infecting my entire body with venom, shaking my core, suffocating my words.

I will not be silenced. The call will be heard for miles around. Head lifted, I refused to be caged. Free to spread my wings, I will fly.

It’s funny that after I finish hating for you. I will pray for you. I will ask for forgiveness for your soul (and I may even mean it). I will lift holy words for your life so that I may move on from your presence. And though I will never forget, I will survive.

Author’s note: This is dedicated to women stronger than me, and who are me at the same time. A light on a hill can never be hidden.