A STORY I NEED TO TELL

Thirteen is a lucky number. After 13 years in hell, I finally made it out alive. Thank you, my blond savior, for putting a fire under me, and catching me as I leapt from the frying pan…

Each night, I re-live the escape from hell in my dreams. Sometimes, I can’t leave, because I can’t find some item I think I need to take with me. Other times, I try to scream at the man who imprisoned me, but my throat is dry and there is a thousand-pound weight on my chest. There have been a few occasions, however, when I tell that man off, that he is a bad man, that he should not have treated me the way he did, that he owes me an apology. His reactions vary from nonchalant indifference, to mock friendliness, to violent rages like the ones he had had in life. His catch phrase had been “Why don’t you just Fuck off and go to hell”- I must have heard it thousands of times. It was always my fault- whether I had exhibited so-called “malignant stupidity” for the unintended drip or two while painting his furniture for him, or had related one of my dreams to him in too “boring” a voice for him to endure. There was nothing I could do right, there was nothing he could do wrong, EVER. But I stayed and stayed and stayed for 13 years, thinking one day it would get better. I suffocate at the thought of it.

Nearly five years have passed since I came out into the light. Life is an exultation which I never want to end. The scent of spring flowers in the trees is the highest form of beauty. I can breathe. I can feel the sunlight on my face. So why are my nights filled with these dreams of dark, fetid halls and bitter tears? Why won’t this man leave me alone? He invades my dreams and terrorizes the morning with his acid tongue. My chest burns at the thought of him. I am an old rag, twisted dry so that every drop of turpentine is wrung out.

I want to world to know the injustices this man did. Not to save anyone else he may harm next, though that would be a great benefit to those that love them, but because I have story to tell, and I just have to tell it. And I want him to read it one day, and writhe in bitter agony realizing the wrongs he committed. Surely, when his time comes, HE is the one who will “fuck off and GO TO HELL”.