What’s yours, is mine

‘It’s mine and you can’t have it’, she watched from afar as the children played in the park across from her house. Looking through her window, she found herself drawn to the little girl standing up against this boy. One ball to be shared by two it seemed posed challenges that not even the parents who stepped in could match.

Those words though, she felt at her core, and in a flash they sent her reeling back …… once more.

’What’s yours is mine and what’s mine belongs to me’, the image behind those words was the face she didn’t like to see. 

Scanning the room, she knew what would come next, for as the goalkeeper trapped inside his net, weighing up only the distance, it would be in the form of a kick or a throw; how it relied only on her skill as to where the strike would land and to what or whom it would connect, leaving her with nowhere to go. Each act carried out by him as directed at her - was the very painful blow.

There was no boundary line here as often drawn in by sand, this was the taking of control and a very real abuse, marked by hand. When the strike hit the target - her - as it sometimes did, the excuses would begin to flow ‘how it was only an accident, how he hadn’t meant any harm’ she would not be allowed to speak about how many times these things had happened, for that too would have then been her trying to hurt him.

Then…. When…..not maybe…. or if, his aim reached the kids, 

or the dog 

or a wall, 

he would declare it had been thrown over there - for as the referee in his own game he was entitled to make that call.

Next would come the  ‘he said versus she says’ stuff, designed to mess with them all. She would be told to: ‘Seek first to understand, so that then you can be understood’ for as he said: ‘there is something mentally unwell with you, you always get it wrong’. His strategic move of those posts was a Daly design to keep her at play; sadly too late, as with others she was aware of this today. 

In the attempt to make sure she ‘would do better’ & to keep her contained, (oops, or as he would say ‘maintained’) he wielded his power through possession of the ball, a vigilant attack/the constant contact felt again and again - a victory to guarantee her imminent fall.

Bounce, bounce, it still took great skill to stop the thoughts rolling round in her head, how this game over time had become the one of life or death.

A good coach knows that to destroy the other team, will need a clever diversion, a joint effort to steal away their hopes and dream. Wear them down, leave them feeling drained, for like he would tell her, with someone like you it’s easy - because ‘you’re fucking insane’. She was left again, to wipe the spit from her face.

Bounce, bounce…. 

Bounced from pillar to post, she was  grateful for some of those walls, the damage that had plastered itself along each room, met by his delivery over time, it was something that could not be so simply rendered away. 

There had been no whistle to blow when she was in his field, no yellow card to caution against those types of blows, no red card that could create a vision to make any of it stop. Their little defenders, like the two in this yard, had been so pretty in pink shorts, yet so confused by this game, the fear that this match was not like any they said they had played at school, for this one left marks, a stain on their heart & holes that couldn’t be repaired or filled.

It was all done along the rooms that shared walls.

Each weapon used in his sport would be later replaced with a different tool to apply his trade: for surely a broken plate can be repaired by a trip to Disneyland, garden scissors can be cut down to size by the purchase of an expensive gift or how the sound of a belt could whip something into shape and an umbrella used as a spear would become the perfect canopy covered with a day at the zoo. Surely it can? Can’t it?

To him, in everything there was always a fix. 

‘Forget what you saw, don’t speak of it or else expect there to be more?’

All of those memories hid raw feelings too, like the spiked boots in a well kept box, the laces painted in Colors of red, black and blue. 

Oh yes, this game of soccer was very different indeed, it was not the gentleman’s game she had remembered playing with her brother or watching with her father as a child too, those ones had memories of gentle-men in jerseys with very fancy footwork, skilled feet in long socks, using their head and chest, all in the spirit of a good game.

No, no, those games were not like his at all, these ones by ‘him’ when standing over her like a giant ten feet tall, were a different tactic used, his ones  had a ‘hands on’ approach, that she remembered so well in that they were definitely against the rules. 

Shaking, pushing, shoving, ignoring the pleas of both her & the wee midfielders to stop, this game, his game was one all players (other than him) had hoped & begged to swap. 

‘What’s yours is mine and what’s mine belongs to me’, had become the rant of words, the physical rage that would follow, leaving them confused at why and where it would come from but desperately wanting to flee. 

For each and every moment, she was always thankful for a friend , those who could see beneath the lies, like the friend who had given her a key. Did he know? Is that why he stuck around, even when she wasn’t at her best, could he sense the things she had been subjected to, the pain inside her chest. The thought stayed with her as she turned the handle and let herself outside. He had never asked questions, but somehow made her always feel safe. He’d taught her what real friendship was all about. With him, there was never anything needing to be questioned, there was no fear, no confusion, never any doubt. That difference should have been enough to stay away, yet like every other woman who has experienced the same, she would believe the lies and return to him again, 

and again 

and again. 

dear Brian, when did you know?

It would take the oldest child to give her the final call, ‘either him or me mum’ the acknowledgement that they could not live like this anymore. It was the réalisation that the continual game being played on them would take a life.  

Yes, you heard right

A life

Her life

Bounce, bounce….

The little girl and the boy were playing with the ball now.

bounce, bounce

The only ball I wish I could hold today, would be a Crystal one to see her beautiful face

the same one that could have shown us earlier the intentions behind ‘what’s yours is mine and what’s mine belongs to me’ how the need for power and control and to remove harm became an almost impossibility - 

how most people today turn a ‘blind eye’ because they just don’t want to see.

Yet, somewhere in that Crystal ball to see those who still believe the lies, so that perhaps maybe she could have stood a chance against the sight of those angry bees.