Once, I Was a Person

It’s March again. I think. At least according to the calendar I scratch into the wall underneath my bed. It’s March again, but it never matters. I don’t even know why I still keep track. What would I be now if I was outside- 30? No, that can’t be right, that means I’ve been here for…. 12 years?

It’s March again. I think. It’s another day I’ll walk to the small kitchenette 5 feet from my bed, the chain around my ankle clinking against the cement floor, and I’ll make my tea. I’ll stare out the barred window wondering how this happened to me and if my family still thinks about me. And I’ll sit inside the small wardrobe on the other wall, shut the doors and try to dream there is something else besides this room. What if I had gone to college, gotten married, bought a house and had a baby? What if I had been able to be someone? And then, like most other days, he’ll come when the sun goes down. He’ll smell like whiskey and cigarette smoke and he’ll call me sweetheart and he’ll lie on top of me and fuck me as if I had a choice and as if I loved him. He’ll pass out next to me and I’ll think about suffocating him. But I’m too frail and he’s too big and he’s a light sleeper and he’s thrown me across the room before. More than once. I used to fight. But there’s no use.

It’s April and I can’t remember my name sometimes.

Every day, when the sun is too high to see out my window, he brings me a peanut butter sandwich and a bowl of instant ramen. Chicken flavor. Never more, never less, except on days I’ve made him angry. He feeds me just enough to keep me alive but not enough to become anything more than a wraith.

It’s May and I can smell the spring air from the cracks in the roof and the draft through the window. I miss the sun. Like, actually feeling the sun. Standing outside. I don’t remember what anything feels like. 

Sometimes I think about Plato’s Allegory of the Cave and I wonder if I would even recognize the world if I stepped outside this room. Is there anything more than the scene outside my window? Is it just a picture? Would I feel the soft grass between my toes as I ran away? Would he follow me? But I know he would. He would chase me and come for me and beat me and rape me and throw me back in here and cover my window. It’s happened before- it’s why I’m chained to the bed by my left foot. It’s why the bed is bolted to the floor in the farthest corner from the door, and it’s why the window is barred. But I never cry anymore because there is very little left of me.

It’s June, and I spoke out of turn last night. Sitting in the wardrobe, I touch the eye that’s swollen closed. I can feel one of my ribs isn’t sitting where it should. And my neck hurts; he almost collapsed my windpipe this time. He almost freed me from this life. But then what would he have? So he left me in a pile on the floor and told me to think about what I had done.

It’s July again. I think. I asked for a fan for the room. It’s too hot; it’s stifling. He said I could have one if I was a good girl, and then he shoved me to my knees and undid his belt.

If it’s August, it doesn’t matter. If it’s September, it doesn’t matter. I’m just a shadow that lives in a room with a bucket for a toilet. Sometimes I wonder if I am alive at all, or if this is purgatory for something I’ve done. I’ve had all these years to reconstruct every action I’ve ever taken- to count all my sins and wonder if they truly add up to this. Growing up in the church, I knew their god was hateful, but I didn’t know he was real until he put me in here. I didn’t know the devil until the first time he came inside the room, told me I was his and took away my choices. All my choices. Nothing is mine anymore, not my body, not my name, not my breath, not my words.

It’s October 28th again. This is the one date I am always sure of, because it is the worst day of each year. It’s the day he stole me, but he calls it the day he found me. And this is the one day a year he tells me he loves me. He brings me flowers, and the smell is nauseating because of what it means. This day, he’s usually less volatile, and sometimes he even brings the whiskey with him and lets me get drunk, too. It makes what comes next more bearable.

On October 28th he fucks me, but it’s different than all the other nights- all the other small deaths. During, he tells me I’m his and that he loves me and that someday I’ll understand why he has to keep us together. Someday, he’ll be able to let me out- when I’ve been a good enough girl. I have a specific script to adhere to so he can get off and I can avoid another black eye or broken wrist: I love him, too, and I’m so grateful for the life he’s provided me. I almost vomit every time, from the booze or the rape or the words- I can’t tell and it doesn’t matter.

ACT LIKE YOU LIKE IT. And he slaps me across the face. 

I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Please.

It’s the end of November again. I know because he brought me a shredded turkey sandwich instead of peanut butter.

Sometimes, when the snow comes, I try to remember what it was like to celebrate Christmas with my family. I wonder if they miss me, if my name is ever said at a mealtime prayer, if there’s a picture of me on the mantle. They probably think I’m dead. I probably am.

Have you ever thought about killing someone in cold blood? Like, thought it out in detail with that knot in your chest that lets you know you really mean it. I spend most mornings sipping my tea and wondering if I will ever find a way to get him in his sleep. If I’ll ever find a way out. If there is an out at all. I think about smothering him with one of the flattened pillows on my hard, sunken mattress. I think about choking him to death with the chain attached to my leg. I think about breaking the window and using a shard to stab him until I am soaked in his whiskey-soaked blood like a baptism of freedom. I think about gouging his eyes out with the singular spork I am allowed to have to eat my daily bowl of ramen, and then running. But all these murders require strength that I don’t have and can’t gather.

It’s January again. I tried to refuse the routine raping last night and now I’m pretty sure my wrist is broken again. I can see the knots from the previous breaks slowly disappearing as my arm and hands swells. I can feel the bruising on my neck and the blood still running from between my legs and I feel like I’m having cramps. Maybe I’ll hemorrhage and I’ll finally die. My face is cold. I’m probably pale, but I’ve never had a mirror, so I don’t know what I look like. It’s been so long that I don’t remember. I don’t know who I am. But I do know that tonight he’ll call me a dirty slut for the old and new blood covering my legs. It won’t stop him, though. There will be more because there’s always more.

It must be February 14th, because he brought me a solitary red rose at sunset and tried to apologize for the night before. I have to say it’s okay and it was actually my fault, like I always do, like it always is. He kissed me on the mouth and touched my face, gently, which is somehow no less violent than when he throws me across the room. I just- I can’t anymore. It’s been too long, and I just can’t.

It’s March again. I think. I figured out how to leave this room. I broke through the window with both my fists and pulled the length of my arms across the jagged glass. I can feel myself disappearing, laying on the floor in a pool of warmth and sleep. For the first time, he’ll find me with a smile on my face when the night comes.