Minimal Damage

I remember sleeping about five inches from the ceiling. Coffinesque. I went to sleep stifling an endless scream. My brother was in the lower bunk. I fell once but don't remember the circumstances. I dreamed of men. Famous ones. Ones my friends say would be good for me.

I broke his things when he was gone. I'd slip into our closet and find seashells he collected, just one or two, not instantly noticeable and take them to the laundry room in the Big House, as the girls call it. I'd take one at a time on the blue counter-top.

I remembered when we chose the house. The laundry room was a plus and one reason of many we moved there. I didn't think to protect the counter though. My method left minimal damage to the place where I folded clothes and dusted; I would shatter the thing softly if it was breakable in that way.

With a hammer against the counter-top. If it wasn't sometimes I would twist his pliable things and misfile his papers. Shattered the sea shells then cleaned them up. I had to stop myself; once I swung harder than before smashing the shit out of his cassette tapes. One by one.

It seemed to energize me and I lusted for harder strokes until I saw the window shake above the counter-top and felt pieces of plastic lodge in my hair. Put all but the hammer in the shopping bags I had hidden in my trunk. I rolled the bag and contents up tight then shoved them deep into the bottom of the trash can rummaging long to assure all would remain undetected.

I wouldn't have known what to say or do. Painfully shy and damaged. Periods of overcompensation. Self-medicating with drugs and spiraling out of control with an abusive partner. Abuse has permeated my life. I ask myself why I stayed. I can tell you. I didn't think I could handle being alone. I loved the house. I loved him.

By the end, he had topped yet another level of cruelty. I still hung on.

I washed down the counter-top. There were divots. I did the best I could to smooth, even sanded with a fine grain but the evidence was clear. If he had ever gotten up to go into the laundry room to do anything other than to clean his pipe or to throw things away with the light off, there would have been cause for more concern. Either way, I put a towel there first, no, that's just random. Nothing was ever out of place. Resigned that it was coming-just a matter of time.

I started to subconsciously break or damage things as well. Casually while doing dishes or putting them away. Slip, his mother's casserole dish. Slip, his grandmother's dessert wine glasses. Plates, glasses. Broken inside the dishwasher and on the floor. Most I had to hide in the trash.

He evicted me while I was in a psychiatric hospital for no reason other than "You were mean to me." My social worker mentioned that he wanted the hospital to release me to homeless shelter so he didn't have to give me any of my stuff. She advised him that it would be a bad move legally.

He liked to tackle and threaten to kill. When I disagreed or felt tired of being ignored and bled dry for my time, housekeeping, rent, and lawn care, he'd assault me. When I struck back or screamed too loud, he'd call and they'd come. They never listened to me and he always won with lies. I would be tucked away and he'd visit the standards, I guess: strip club for coke and his friend for a cock to suck.

I had no options or choices.

The eviction turned out to be the best thing for me. Alone. I keep reading that it is because of the trauma I'm scared to connect. It is true. Each day as the memories fade some, I feel better and better.

The last thing broken in his house: palm-striking my framed art work. It hangs in my room now, above the bed, no glass still. A hole in the middle of a poster of Van Gogh's Sunflowers.

I started to give his things away to charity. The antique table that my laptop burned and his mother's racist scowl, forked tongue, and rudeness. My paralysis on the killing floor. Then, holy shit! Surprise, love! It was amazing and dreadful and the ache reminds me to be thankful I found it. The universe has a sick sense of humor, but a sense of humor just the same. Like in A Fish Called Wanda.

I did not keep the love, but I guess in a way, I turned it onto itself and it made me want to live.