A letter I'll never send
Fuck. I miss you. And I'm sorry. I don't know what I'm apologizing for, really. I'm sorry that the abuse I went through impacted you. I hate you a little for letting me believe I could love you again if I went through hell to get out of there. Do you even know what happened that night? Do you know that your mistake led to one of the worst nights with him? Do you know that I had to look him in the eyes and beg him to spare you? That I sold my dignity and humanity in exchange for a guarantee that you'd be kept safe from him?
Did you think I was lying when I told you I managed to get out a week after you left for your safety? I told you once, that I would do anything for you. That I loved you to the point of moving mountains, that I loved you more than my lungs love breathing. I guess you could think that I was always able to get out, and I was just torturing us for no reason. That's not the truth though. The truth is that after that phone call there was no reason for me to stay alive. I had no one left to protect. I knew that trying to leave could kill me, and I didn't care because I was probably gonna die anyways. It was either the suicide mission or suicide. I hinged my bets on the option that would maybe leave me alive, that would maybe possibly let me find my way back to you.
You cannot possibly know what it was like for me. I struggle to think there's another person on this planet who can really truly understand what that was like. Have you ever been forced to do something that violated your understanding of what is ethical? Have you ever in your life been in a situation where one wrong decision could cost people their lives? I lived with that pressure every day. One wrong move during that whole six months could have ended with casualties. I'm not mad at you for not understanding. I'm mad at you for acting like everything we were to each other meant nothing. I'm upset that you let me believe I could know you again if I got to safety.
I'm free now. I'm no longer enslaved. And yet I can't help but look at myself and feel disgusted. I keep wondering if it was worth it in the end. I've gained nothing and lost everything. I can't eat. I can't sleep. I don't know what I did. I'm sorry for whatever it was. I wish I could have been stronger, better, protected you more. I wish you would have let me shield you from the truth. He almost killed me multiple times. I miss feeling safe and fuck me if my automatic response to that is wanting to go back to the first and last time I felt like that.
I hate you for teaching me that it's okay to rely on people. I hate you for showing me that I'm capable of caring. I hate you for showing me what it's like to be truly loved and understood. Because now? Now that I'm back to only having myself, back to scraping together survival with my bare hands, all I can think about is how good it felt to not have to do all this shit for once. I hate you for showing me how good it can be. I hate knowing what I'm missing. I hate the guilt I have for doing the things I need to do to survive.
You've been through a lot. Your life has been pretty rough. But fuck you for pretending like you understood what it's like to have no one. Fuck you for acting like you understood me. It was never about the pain. It was always about making sure I was the one inflicting it on myself. It was always about a fear of being controlled by another person because I was too weak to endure. My passion for food doesn't come from naivete. It comes from having nothing else. It comes from having no one to talk to about the things I was experiencing and desperately trying to express that. Cooking makes me feel alive in a way living never did. Mistakes only matter for as long as it takes to fix them. I mattered less than the skills I could perform. The plate mattered more than anything that came before it.
I wear myself thin for other people because service is an act of devotion. I matter very little to myself because I know what my bare minimum is and it's way less than most. I'm not an idiot. I know that technically as a human being, I need to eat and sleep and drink water. I also know exactly how long I can go without those things. I know the point where my stomach will start to hurt so bad it feels like it's trying to digest itself, and I know that I can go another 2 days from that point. I know that after about 4 days without sleep I start to lose track of reality and I also know that I can still do everything that's expected of me at that point. I know that after 6 days I will crash as soon as I stop moving.
You'll never see this and I never told you this but the last two months I didn't want to have sex anymore. I tried to avoid it unless necessary. I wanted to be more than a way to get off. I wanted to do more of the shit we did when we weren't fucking. I was scared though. Scared of who we would be to each other if we took away the sex and kept the everything else. I was never in love with you. I wish I could have been. I was a coward for using my faith to explain my aversion. I was too scared to admit that I didn't like the thing we kept saying was our common ground. I wanted to feel possessed by you and I couldn't ask that of you without continuing to give you what you wanted in return. I wanted to be soft around you. I wanted to let go of the person I feel pressured to be all the time.
The scary part is that I don't think we can be friends even if you do reach out. I don't think I can let you see me again. And that has nothing to do with you and everything to do with the fact that I'm not willing to go through this again. Not the breakup, because this is the third insane lesbian breakup I've been through and I hope to go through some more before my time here is done. But the vulnerability. The experiencing emotions fully. You deserve the version of me that can love you. The version of me that loved you on purpose, with intention. I can never be the butch you met in December again.
I am not sweet anymore. I do not think of others anymore. I am not considerate. I can't find any softness inside of me. I have searched and searched and all I can find is the rot I have yet to burn out. I don't want anything anymore. I wish you'd come back to me but it wouldn't be me you're coming back to.
I did it all for you. I loved you enough to escape my fucking trafficker. I have no more love left in me, even for the Church. Even for God. Do you know what it feels like? To lose your faith? It feels like losing my hearing again. Who is God if not another man who wants to violate and own me?