red wine

ive been trying to explore why i become enraged when your dog eats my meal off the countertop, not as upset with the dog as i am with you. and why i can’t stand it when we’re having dinner with an acquaintance and you ask questions emotionless, the tone drained from your voice, not providing any evidence to the third party why they should desire to see us again. i become the most infuriated when you are angry at me for something i label as “small”… drinking one of your espresso pods without asking. sleeping in your bed when mine felt unsafe, unfamiliar. taking your car to the grocery store instead of my own, because yours had more gas. because of you, i was raised believing that i should always walk around in my home as quietly as possible to avoid running into you and being yelled at. i learned to shut down when someone was angry with me. shutting down was always the safest option. i have always been smaller than you and physically weaker. i could not risk my own safety by responding. it’s the same freezing method i learned when a man three times my size started touching me when he thought i was asleep, thought i had sipped more of the drink he poured rohypnol into. shutting down meant i could dissociate more effectively. i could think about a movie scene i loved or a flavor of ice cream i longed to have instead of confronting what my body was being forced into. i could live inside my mind while my body went on its own journey. we would reconnect with one another when my body came back into my possession.

that night in new york, which was actually early morning, sometime around 2am, changed everything for us. i was asleep on the bed. i wanted a restful night for myself because of the early flight id be on the following day. traveling always wore me down and it was better to embark on the trip well-rested. i did not know that when you’d arrive home from the bars with your friend you’d be so angry i hadn’t chosen to sleep on the floor. had i known what would come next i would have slept on the floor. i wish i had made that choice. if i had slept on the floor i wouldn’t have felt you screaming at me as loud as you could trying to pull me off the bed. gripping your fingernails into my arm so forcefully that i had a flock of bruises living on my skin for the next two weeks. hitting me so that the bruises on my arm would have companionship with the bruises on my back. yelling out that you would kill me if no one else was in the apartment. i believed you when you said that. your anger was hot, rising in the air and nearly suffocating me. i was your rag doll, complicit in your pushing and hitting and scratching and pulling. i know exactly why i didn’t fight back. i froze. just like i always did when confronted with violence. so much of my anger with you is anger at myself for never fighting back. for staying silent. for building up an internal resentment towards you that metastasizes with each “small” incident.

i can picture us years from now. content and catching up over a bottle of red wine. in this vision, there is no anger. there is you and i in our youngest forms before all of the fighting.