dudes...

marci and i are on the same page but she just wouldn't believe that they keep calling the police. she's like, no, you must have it wrong.

I TELL YOU IT IS THE POLICE CUZ I CAN READ THE BODY LANGUAGE AND THE LUNGING. they have people coming after me when i'm crying and scared because they say i'm aggressive when i say i'm really too scared because i can't understand what i'm reading to function, and that i feel like i have to kill myself. my professor wants this one assignment due that's a journal and i can't figure out what it is. i think i've read every page of the syllabus but i can't remember because when i get to a glitch and a page won't display i get really suicidal and have to stop, just stop, just watch some copper or red dwarf and fall in love with men who don't exist, and then feel so sad that despite donal logue choosing characters who are just so feminist he plays a complete asshole who will cut a woman while she's down and leave her fetus bleeding out....

anyway, so i have to do that or all the flashbacks will unlock...because...if i can't read...then how do i exist? if i can't read how is it possible that anything in my life has ever been real? i have this deaf friend who gets really pissed off when i correct her in the store looking for baby stuff, and i said to her that "priced as marked" means no discount, so don't expect one, but maybe you'll get lucky--and because she did get a discount she keeps telling me i'm not as smart as i think i am and that my english is far from good.

but i just turned to her in the checkout lane and said, "i'm fucking right...don't you ever, ever doubt my ability to read and understand english...you got lucky, i said you might, and it's not worth fighting over, so drop it--but i'm telling you, i understand grammar just fine." she did...after a while. and i am just not the type--it's just that she had a budget, and then in line she was like, "here, you pay for these two things; i can only spend $20."

i was this far from telling her to stuff it. but the baby is just too cute, and too sweet, and she's increasingly rough. i keep telling her that i understand it's frustrating raising a baby by yourself, but you can't jerk a baby around and slap him for sliding down in an ill-fitting wooden high chair, you tell me to watch your baby while you enjoy being at a restaurant...or let him slouch because he's happy with peas all over his face. cutest little bundle!...

so if i'm scared i'm not real and that all this is a just a creepy nightmare and i can't actually read or write, and i'm having flashbacks of being raped by a lot of guys who are really intimidated by my writing--my talent--hearing men are just as bad as deaf men, but not all hearing guys--they're just already married!

and mike made me promise not to marry anyone who won't have my back and do all the housework because holding down a job outside the home and all the artistic jobs i have at home are much more important than vacuuming. that i can't let myself get trapped with someone who won't support my talent in that way. and i just get discouraged when i remember all the ones who tried to beat me up or kill me. it's really scary because when they try to kill me usually it's a spur-of-the-moment anger that just aliens forth in a bloody fury they didn't expect to have to employ. because i'm like, "no, no, no sex." mostly no kissing either. i had to physically eject this nasty bastard who made out with me as we were waving goodbye on a dark street, his hand down my pants--and, thank god, it was the bronx, so a bus flew by and he disengaged.

he was thin and peruvian, but he didn't mention that half his nose cartilage was missing, so he had a really flat nose. it actually wasn't unattractive but i kept wanting to vomit throughout the date and refused to let him draw it out. i asked him to leave early. he was so pissed off and i had to literally push him all the way to the door. he looked just like a peruvian fatso because of the nose--it was kind of a cute, wide, smushed button nose--it just kept my body ringing NO NO NO NO NO NO.

it's rare that someone actually looks like him, but i've met at least four in the last four years. i think six but for sure four.

david was the first, and i told david he was so my favorite man ever, the way he looked just like fatso until he started signing, moving just like joeray and the eyebrows and elbows, but suave, and with ty's facial expressions and eyes, chocolatey warm but on alert...and that it was amazing because he didn't hit me or threaten to destroy my life because i can really write but it's not fair that i can write because they want to write.

then he hit me. right away. to tell me he wasn't like them. and he tore my head off.

and i just kept going back to see why he'd hit me. but he just kept getting angrier and angrier. he almost dislocated my shoulder the next time i saw him, our fourth date, because he was so ashamed that he couldn't donate any money to the wall street play we saw, a really fun one he fell in love with, just could not stop beaming through, chasing hamlet all through the mall, then abruptly yanking me when i started to pull out a few bills...down the stairs...almost dislocating my shoulder, snarling, furious, stalking in the rain, not quite stalking off but boiling with shame and anger, hatred...of me.

then i slipped into his arm with the umbrella and gave him the lighter. when i tried to ask a few blocks down why he was so angry that i was paying for something i asked him to do, nice and dreamy, he just pushed me away and disappeared. i took the D alone, and he rode the D one stop further than i did.

this is what i don't like about people who try to grab me or keep me from getting out of the room, or break my arm. or strangle me. they're all about telling me i've got to become someone else to live, and i won't.

curried favor

when someone remarks that the board his noose was tied to broke, it sends all sorts of shocks through your body. when it's someone you love it's worse.

he is one of the most handsome men i've ever met, and i know he's sorry for the life he led when he was young and afraid, but--i can't imagine i'd be happy.

and i worry. i know he'll have a fantastic string of women who marvel that he likes us plain and juicy, but that's beside the point of life. i worry, and what the fuck is the idiot thinking, leaving me like this? i told him outright that he's an idiot and has the most annoying habit of ignoring what women are actually upset about and saying, and that he was absolutely required to make it the longest goodbye.

he's out there thinking i've cut him off and he knows from experience that when i disappear it's because i'm unable to text. what the fuck did he think i'd marry that for, then, but--he's so lonely. i worry; he's nowhere, and he's lonely, and i'll find out someday somehow that long ago he was washed up on some riverbank, and i'll wonder if he ever felt happy again.

fucking god, why are men so fucked up?

why love doesn't a marriage make

well, maybe not why. i feel wretched. i want to say yes but there are too many risks.

plus my phone's not working, and he took that as a sign to drop off the face of the earth, not come see me--i'd said no, but i'd said yes to a long, long goodbye.

i don't want it to end like this, but i'm not dealing with this idiot anymore. what idiot would assume after being told two dozen times in no uncertain terms that he's to come anytime and that if i'm not home he's to wait in our private alcove, luxuriate in the beauty of the air in this part of town?

ah, i hate that i said no, i really wish i could have said yes, and i would have taken the chance--after all, when the sex takes up ten hours a week or more, what is there to say no to, especially if you can actually work together on two of your dream careers--two talents are better than one?

a lot, i guess. a lot.

i also know what "you're the smart one, you come up with that" means. it means a lifetime of grueling work and scrambling to keep the ship together while someone's draining the budget and lounging about. i'm not doing that again, and since there are very few other legal options for this guy--

--no, that was the first no, just.

how can he just leave like this? i know he thinks i decided to kick him out of my life, because he kept saying to stop texting if i didn't want him around--

--but now...he's cut off all his phones, his e-mail addresses, and this random number tied to a stupid new--

--god, fuck, god, of course i want to see someone i really love who's tried to kill himself in the most grotesque ways over the summer, and who really doesn't deserve anything bad, just--it's not  my future.

it's not my future and, yeah, i want to see someone i really love. i kept blaming him for my fear and panic after i left joe, but he never let me do it. he'd fire right back that if he'd let me stay with joe i could be dead, or at least destroyed.

he's such a fucking idiot. always has been, always, a fucking idiot, and i am just so fucking sick of worrying because when someone you love despite all his faults tells you he's tried to kill himself more ways than you can ever imagine, surviving a river and more--

i just shut down when he said "start a family." totally stopped texting anything but Okay and Yeah. i miss him...i really do...but my morals just can't bend that far. i'd never sacrifice my life for a man, and i was more than willing to do it for the babies. i still would. not for their father, for them. it's hard bending my mind and life around a felon...i can't do it for anyone but the two little sweeties.

why is this fucker putting miles between us that were supposed to disappear?

two of these things are exactly the same

so my psychiatrist asked the other day

who reacts like that, hearing people or deaf people?

so my social worker jumped a bit at my answer

oh, hearing people

when i showed how terrified and afraid i am...

but the thing is, no, deaf people really don't react in the way hearing people do

first of all, i can hold my own, and second of all

somebody already "warned" them

i mean, come on... jeff johnson got terrified as shit

when i asked who told him i was back in cincinnati

and he was all no no no no no no no nobody told  me

and i'm like, seriously, jeff, we were like brother and sister before this shit got to you

just tell me who...i wonder how long it's been going around--

people act like it's a huge fucking secret

but why would i keep the amazing interpreters who graduate from cincinnati state as long as dawn keeps the ITP alive? tony couldn't do it. he's a pushover and he won't go out of his way to circulate on the scene, be the queen with his own terp-a-long, na'mean? i could do it; i'm exceedingly fair, and i can read a scene

but being all "hello, my name is anti-rape beth, and hello, because if you haven't heard of me, once you say my last name someone somewhere might get back to you on that within a fortnight"

is kinda bad for biz

so i gotta take it, what it is

that's what's up and i decided this

thing one

when i was 16 still, i think, maybe just seventeen, but going on, it must have been

because that's when lt and ryco sat next to each other, rekindling a romantic platonic friendship i liked

and i decided it was time to announce that, no, i do not just talk about sex, that i can be taken seriously on other topics, that i had just dispensed a fact--and lt looked at me, besotted with ryco, wanting to be queen of zingers, me being defined for the rest of my life in the Deaf community

no you can't talk about anything but sex, that's who you've always been and who you'll always be

and i thought i was stuck because everyone thought she was queen, period

there were always references to nefertiti, isis too i'm sure

so whenever i tried to be assertive and got raped it got me down

(i know i have to talk about lt and lr this time around...what she did killed me more than clint

she took the knowledge and just crushed, crushed, crushed me and still sees the real me--but won't help me survive, so i have nowhere to go but the hearing world until i can stop folding when someone tries to tear my heart out like my liver--

--truly one of the very best friends i ever had, until that night)

thing two

when i was 29, yea, 29 i say, and this the hallowe'en

idle jak stumbled upon a dog pile of steamin' jealousy

glared across from the kitchen sink a redhead

to my merlot wig, yea, drunker than i, engag'd

in cigar-wilting conversation 

with her blue-eyed boyfriend

who, doubled over with laughter, justly knew 

all i said was monica lewinsky-positive hullabaloo

and yet, yet i was arrest'd by the monstrous visage

of someone who forgives bb the mirror of uncle fester

an oozing sore of anger at his own party arresting

all his words mincing a rasp like a zester gone mad

you are a disgrace to yourself you're insulting this man

you're a mean person, i was warned and now i see

bill clinton couldn't have looked more nonplussed

than the man wearing a black wig claiming to be his twin

and if he couldn't at least have taken one thing from jade

(and, yes, i mean the flour in people's hair in slo-mo)

it was a tower of blue-eyed similarity i could see taking on

but i took off with the big blue eagle from the muppets, our bale

eyed eagle jak, who sat me on the stairs stop crying! that shaking's fake!

i know! (just what ty said to send me into a world of despair)

you can't be part of the deaf elite in this city of new york, if you dasn't

just let us tell you you're lying, just admit you're a terrible person

who just makes fun--i know what you did to ty! (i called him the dumbest

meanest names you can think of, the worst things, because he was an actor

and it was a big joke to say things that made people stare

because he knew i loved the stuffing out of him and the harm

was in judgement, it was our private joke, and of course jak was the jam

in th' the sandwich) you'll never get away with saying 

any of these things you're saying just get steve, get him, he'll explain

he's bill clinton, he doesn't look like him in all that black hair, but he sure does

and he's just (sorry my nose is just dribbling all over my dress i'm

so fucking scared why won't you get jason) having so much fun laughing

what's the problem i'm making fun of bill clinton from monica's POV

can't you tell that that's all a joke and we're

oh, she's jealous and you're her best friend, oh

why won't you just let me have fun too, nobody really thinks--

stop it we love jason thanks for bringing him he's one of us 

i won't let you sully his reputation, he's a boon to the Deaf community

we gotta do something about the way he signs but he is uh-maaazing

thanks for bringing him now you go home or sit here but

you gotta stop screaming it doesn't make us believe you any more

buh-bye, you pathological liar

and i sat there for four hours, screaming with snot coming

tears flowing everything on full stop broke all over my cleavage

ck, jak, i think someone else came out to check on me

every fucking 45 minutes and i was still there shaking mad with flashbacks

to ty that night and begging for jason

but they said to go home but i was his home for the night 

the keys were at my place

and when he came out his knees buckled

this is how i will remember him forever, isn't it dumb, all those moments

and this one i'll keep too, all of them, his eyes wide with horror

he stumbled down to the steps and sank what happened to you 

what did they do to you oh, shit, i didn't know, they said you got mad

and left

remember we had that one line of argument before, when i said you broke your promise

to avoid talking misogynistic bullshit tonight, that you're not being you?

yeah, and i apologized, i really did mean it, i was being an ass

well...and i'm fast-forwarding for poetry's sake now

...they're using that against me to discredit me, that harvard gal

she got jealous of me cracking her boyfriend up, but he's not even interested 

so it's a party, it's a party, i'm themein' it up, it's a party, be funny

isn't that what i do at a party, if i do it everywhere i go? so they said

i'm not allowed to come to any more parties and that you're the best

and they're gonna keep you from me for the rest of my life

but your keys are at my apartment so if i go home how do you get in?

i love you, you know; you're one of my best friends. i'm sorry i stayed--

i wouldn't have if i'd known you were out here all this time. 

here's a few hugs, here's a helping hand, here's me not caring about your slimy face

this was really shitty, this was a real attack, this was just what i mean

i'm so fucking wary of the goddamn Deaf scene

this just seemed so swell, and i should've known you wouldn't dis me

so come on, let's get something to eat, let's party! let's have our own party

just you and me.

gallows humor

(dad hanged himself, and i have to guilt-trip for a minute, so, ha?)

anti-anxiety meds, and a psychiatrist who can totally see why anxiety could be what's left, not depression, so i am over the moon! very fun, intelligent woman, and able to see people for who we are. that's a sweet, sweet spot! people are all so different, i never know when i'll find someone i trust as a psychiatrist or therapist.

so, yeah, this is gonna rock the breakdown.

but i'm writing about fatso because i know i was too ashamed to talk about the beatings much, and the rapes, just what he said to me about being ugly...when we were making out, that he loved me and couldn't bear to have this between us, but then somewhere down the road "you're ugly" and then kissing all my friends and gloating, gloating, gloating

and they didn't realize how horribly he abused them behind their backs

and all i know, it could be that they're hiding things from me too because who wants to say "hey, he called you fart breath" or "you're frigid, he says"? i wanted them to get away from him but it was constantly spun as jealousy...but who enjoys being told week after week about how her friends performed, underperformed, or over performed sexually that week?

he didn't harm them physically. i tried to get someone to understand i really needed help

but i guess i was already programmed to be afraid of violence

and he had visited many daytime abuses upon my body, battered and bruised

until he was satisfied

i was utterly broken, really, truly

but i had josh, i always

kept

josh, and he couldn't follow me there

but what's special about this rendition?

fatso is the root of all (my) self-evil

dad may have given him a hand, clif may have given him a hand--

clif and that zonbie at gally gave me lessons in self-harm, banging their heads bloody and hands the same on any surface that looked like a wall, and even mirrors and wood, and glass--

but the heart of the ugliness of the fear of the sweats and the shakes

takes me right back to MSSD under the night sky dodging security sweeping above the library, the hole sucking the life right out of the room, the glass, the eyes he'd make me stare into before

and i didn't want

anything else then, truly, those eyes

and i knew those nights i would give anything to have a magic carpet

but i just slipped into slack detachment, not even feeling

nothing but reeling, reeling, a crushing heartbreak, nothing but physics

i knew those nights

i would never consider it love

quietude of the disquietude

this is fabulous. i have two blogs nobody reads.

i can finally write down the pain and not cut myself because it's in a journal

and do it right because it's typed

my brain moves differently in a way with the keys so flow

o serenade! a love among unrequited desire

i tried to tell jason about that rape. but he couldn't be there. the one i wrote about over on thebarmansfund.blogspot.com.

and that's my last post there. i don't need to hide anymore. no more trying to kill myself.

the truth is out there, the truth i tried to kill myself over so many times for so long after getting my life together. it's here and there, on both blogs, it's coming together in marci's office, it really isn't a bad thing about myself that caused me to try to kill myself.

it's wanting to go on a date, and not with vincent, but with someone i really, really, really trust. someone i don't think will rape me or hit me, or try to kill me, because i won't put out on day one, and

all the fear

because i thought he cared about me

and dominic insisted that i was crazy if i thought i'd convince him to ask greg for his contact information

it seems so stupid 

but i want to know what he was smiling about

(and people were already berating me and ending friendships for loving david, so i just told everyone it was david--no new thing to be made fun of for, no new rumors that might make it to greg, about how i'm "destroying" the deaf community by saying the rape has got to stop

he must be a father by now...but that doesn't take away that night

marci's helping me understand that it can still be right, and good, and the start of something beautiful

no matter what happened when i got home

open letter to the splendiferous asha wilkens

dear asha ricci,

i knew you and jason must be married by now--but your wedding pic as your profile pic speaks to a more recent ceremony than anticipated--did you make your gown? gorgeous. you should be my designer, heh; i'd split the profits fairly.

i'm beyond thrilled for you and jase. i'm writing notes for my autobio based on my old notes and lost manuscript, and a guide for my therapist because we're looking at what made me break down in 2010. my loss--your husband and my then best friend--has a lot to do with it but i choose not to feel or think about jason because it would get in the way. knowing that he doesn't trust that i was raped because people got to him destroyed me but i put it all on David to keep from being weighted by floyd and jason.

here's my proposal. if you can accept, now that you're mrs. ricci, that you've never been in danger of losing jason or in any creepy bullshit from me, because all we ever were was BFF...and i can't bear to remember how close we were...maybe someday you'll let me congratulate you two and introduce me to your family.

my secrets are right here now. i know you mocked me at several deaf events and in front of floyd for not being pretty enough to attract guys you think are sexy...and that you were paranoid you'd lose me to jason and cost me my equally awesome friendship with floyd. but I know you understood what was so similar about our appearance that would make you hesitate. you felt lucky to have a hottie. you were young and the deaf community some years later informed me that you had been very badly hurt. so it's just part of the process called life, you know?

jason is fabulous. i sure have been with a few married guys, but i consider you a friend, no matter what, even if i saw that you were not someone i could trust with my sexual abuse history. so...your jealousy and my defense mounted in tandem. quid pro quo is more appropriate, yeah?

anyway, because i lost that friendship i have had no rock while I wade the jagged rocks of the freezing banks of despair. i'm totally tired of bein raped by all these people, people who say i'm just too cool and brilliant to ignore or let go without having my pussy first.

jase knows. that's in my notes, that you call him "jase," and i figured that even though the things you did pissed me the fuck off for years, you're probably not the same person you were then. it's terrifying the first few years on your own. that's cool. i get it. he knows i don't say yes, and he knows i'm getting beaten by a lot of them, and sometimes almost killed.

that was the secret. you wouldn't have wanted to know.

i know he loves you and i never asked him to leave you for any reason, or planted any doubt about you. i knew we had our issues and that never has anything to do with relationships with other people. i find that a moral failing and don't subscribe to it...unless someone is being abused and i know about it.

seriously, you know, we're both pretty good at landing hot guys. i have no idea what people told you but i realized as i wrote my notes that deaf women in DC and NYC were always jealous of the attention I effortlessly got from guys they felt were too good-looking for me and would threaten me and tell me to back off because they were pretty and deserved cute partners. i bet someone told you i was putting the moves on your man. girl...never. you are my best friend by extension no matter how infuriating you were in your mid-twenties. know that.

damn. conFABulations! jason and asha have always been real fucking troopers. they really communicate, whatever the flaws therein, and that should keep them fueling. man, jason is grown up! aww! my baby bro BFF is a family man! what!