Scraps

Scraps

This has been sitting in my drafts for 4 months.

I was going to post it because it made me feel vindicated at the time. He would have just come home from a vacation with another woman.  The one where I paid approximately 65% of the costs.  

Clearly there was literally trouble in paradise, and the satisfaction that he was "gushing” about me and not her was immense.  Something prevented me from hitting post on it though.

Fast forward through the subsequent months of bullshit I have endured and I can see through all the backhanded compliments.

He just wanted to soften me up enough to agree to come fuck and do his dishes.  

Spring awakening

It's beginning to warm up a little, and that does have a tendency to help pull me out of a rut. I had the windows open a bit and was enjoying the fresh, cool air.

Until, of course, I heard the sound of his motorcycle in the neighbourhood. At least I think it was his. I got accustomed to recognizing the different hums each machine made, and I could pick his out easily enough last summer.

The sound used to thrill me; now it brings me nothing but dread and reminds me how easily he could appear out of nowhere this season. So much for a pick-me-up.

The windows are closed again.

Tried a self defense course tonight. Realized i am not ready to have people touch me.

Particularly not cishet white men. And particularly not around the throat.

I am ashamed that i am inches away from contacting him today.

Have you ever been to a women's shelter?

You buzz, and you identify yourself before you enter. They have video footage of you and they take pics. If they've misspelled your last name it is a hassle to proceed. If they let you proceed at all.

They'll buzz you in only 5 minutes before you're scheduled. Otherwise there may not be someone to " keep an eye" on you. The leave you outside to be victim to whateved creep is stalking the place that day. Or whatever mother nature has in store.

There's passcodes and two sets of impenetrable doors. There is bulletproof glass at the reception desk. There are hardly any windows and none of them open.

It is stale and stagnant and stinks of misery.

It took me 20 minutes to secure a glass of water since they had to find "an escort". The chairs are stiff. There is an air of everything being just " functional"

It's not welcoming. It has no intention of being so. It's a prison. You're there because of decisions you made.

We leave one to enter another.

Amazing.