When I Hit You

Some men leave me because I am unpredictable – sunshine one moment and storm clouds the next; the scent of summer rain with the sleep-depriving aftershock of thunder. They cannot keep pace with the fighting that follows the kissing that follows the argument that follows the laughing in unending circles.

Sometimes the shame is not the beatings, not the rape.

The shaming is in being asked to stand to judgment.

He believes that after him, I will have nothing left in me to love, to make love, to give pleasure.

The longer I stretch the act of the happily married couple, the more I dodge his anger. It’s not a test of talent alone. My life depends upon it.

She is working on the principle that to consult a man is to make him feel like a king, and to report to him is to make him feel like a god.

Fight or Flight.

The old formula again. I haven’t given up fighting, not yet.

The flight only comes when the fight has failed.

needless questions of men, the worthless jealousy of other women

The soul-talk where I congratulate myself on every moment that I do not have to bother about the incorrigible nature of love, its heavy baggage and bitter arguments, the

The shaming is in being asked to stand to judgment

Sometimes the shame is not the beatings, not the rape.