That Night

She tossed and turned a bit before she was able to resettle into her original position. His 2 a.m. phone calls were becoming habitual. His voice was gravel and his words were inebriation. She was daily…nightly…growing more annoyed with his inconsideration. She had to be up at 4 a.m. to prepare herself for work. She sighed at the thought. He didn’t work, so her need for rest was rarely his concern. He thickly and belligerently demanded that she make him something to eat. He was hungry and on the way. He was always on the way, around the corner, or would be there in a minute. She had called him earlier to ask what time he would be home so she could begin cooking. He never answered. He never returned her call. Access denied. He asked her what she had eaten. Nacho chips and salsa. She was a stupid, selfish bitch for eating and not cooking for him. She sighed. He would deal with her when he got home. She sighed and said she would be there. She hung up. Her heart pumped Kool-Aid. She threw three hot dogs in a saucepan and turned the gas stove to the lowest possible flame before returning to her bed. She tossed and turned a bit before she was able to resettle into her original position

5 minutes, 15 minutes, 50 minutes. She couldn’t have told you.

“The kitchen is on fire! The kitchen is on fire! The kitchen is on fire!” She opened her eyes. He was standing over her. He saw her eyes. He grabbed her arm and began pulling her from the bed.

“The kitchen is on fire! The kitchen is on fire!” She pushed past him and ran to the through the smoke-filled living room to the kitchen. Less smoke. No fire. The stove was off and the hot dogs were black and burned to char. He came to the kitchen.

She asked why he would wake her up that way. His eyes were menacing. She didn’t care. She walked around him. Tried to. He grabbed her arm and swung her around.

“Stupid, selfish bitch!” He spat in her face as he spoke. He grabbed her jaws and she pulled away. Tried to. He threw her backwards and slapped her mouth hard before she hit the wall. She bounced forward and he slapped her again. Then again. Tennis. She slid down closer and closer to the floor. There was no defense. Just blocking. But every move she made was mistaken for a fight. So she fought. She grabbed his clothes and pulled herself up. She lost the fight once she answered the phone. It was principle. She ran to the counter. White ceramic cereal bowl. She threw it. It shattered across his brow in hundreds of pieces. Didn’t even break the skin. He didn’t even falter in his steps. He grabbed the back of her shirt. Granite mortar and pestle. It was next to the white bowl. She grabbed it, he pulled her back by her shirt. She turned and smashed him in the head. Blood. Blood everywhere. He yelled. Not in pain. Rage. Didn’t break a sweat. He threw her to the ground. His fingers were in her hair. He balled his fists on either side of her head with her hair entwined in his hands. He picked her head up and slammed it to the floor. Her ears rang. Again. Again. Again. She screamed. She screamed for every 6 seconds that a woman is killed this way.

“Help! Help! Help!” She cried and screamed. She begged her sleeping but not sleeping neighbors. No one stirred.

He whispered in her ear.

“Whore. Bitch. Fuck you. Stupid, selfish. I’ll kill you.”

Her mind whispered in her other ear.

“We’re going to kill him. We’re going to stab him and he’s going to die. It’s the only way.”

Again. Again. Again. Her head and the threshold. He stood up. Her head throbbed. She rolled over and curled into a ball. He raised his leg and stomped her ribs. She whimpered and tightened the ball. Again. Again. Again. Work boots. The ones Method Man wore with shorts. Again. Again.

She cried and gripped the floor. She pushed herself onto her back and screamed God’s rage.

“Get out! Get out now! Get the FUCK outta my house or so help me God I’m going to kill you! Get out!”

Unpredictable rage. He was scared of nothing, but that rage unnerved him. He left the kitchen. He paced frantically around the living room.

“Who the fuck do you think I am? I’m not soft! Stupid selfish bitch! You were nothing! You’re nothing without me! Bitch!” He came to the threshold. She was sitting up now surrounded in white shrapnel and blood. She shook violently. She looked up at him, more damaged than when he found her. She wailed. She looked around. There was blood everywhere. She screamed. She didn’t even know whose it was.

“Whhhhhhhhy? Why would you do me like this? Whhhhhhhy?”

He backed away from the kitchen. She fell back to the floor wailing and mourning the death of their love. She heard the front door open, then close. She heard the lock.

She stopped moving. She heard only the sound of her breath against the linoleum. She began to crawl slowly toward the threshold. Her hands pressed firmly in the carpet in the dining room. There was blood in the carpet. She looked to her left. Blood was violently spattered across the wall.

She felt her mouth swelling quickly. She continued to crawl. She pulled herself to her feet using a dining room chair. She walked to the mirror that hung behind the table. Unrecognizable. She began to cry. No wailing. He had hit her mouth so hard that she bit clean through her lip. She attempted to pull her lip from her teeth and vice verse but the swelling was too great. She sighed. She went to her room and crawled into bed. She closed her eyes and slept listlessly. The apartment settled. Her nerves frayed. She sat up and reached for her alarm. Off.

She washed her face gently. She could not separate her lips to brush her teeth. She put her toothbrush in her purse. She put her uniform on, grabbed her belongings and left the house.

She drove with concern, but not with purpose. The emergency room doors opened. She sighed and entered. Triage…then x-rays…nurses (“tsk, tsk, tsk”)…the police (photoshoot)…the doctor. He removed her teeth from her lip. She gripped the bed and winced. Then sighed. What was physical pain in comparison to her shattered pride? Prescriptions…xanax for her nerves, percocet for her pain. Nothing for her heartbreak? Just a phone number to the battered women’s shelter. She wasn’t battered was she? A battered woman wouldn’t have thought to kill him. She only decided not to kill him. She loved him too much. Or she loved her freedom more than she loved him.

She left the hospital. Thank God he didn’t make her late for work.

~ifkyng

Great Expectations

I've really been on a path to positivity and increasing and building my confidence beginning this year. I had a long conversation with my mother in regard to my confidence and the point at which it waned. We both agreed that it started with several events that occured in my childhood and continued on up to this point. I can honestly say that it has affected my life in ways I didn't even realize until I got into a serious relationship. I can say honestly, as well, that building confidence begins in the home.

With all that being said, I've been dealing with family issues, that from top to bottom stem from confidences being stripped away. It's a generational curse that began with my grandparents and maybe even my great-grandparents and has continued on, tearing my family apart in its wake.
This note IS NOT going to receive any type of applause or merit, and more that likely will piss a few people off. Fortunately for me I'm a Fearman/Wade and pissing people off seems to be just what we do. I promise though, that my intentions are good but I will not promise (I didn't say can't)...to bite my tongue, or reserve my thoughts about the matter.

My grandmother has fallen quite ill...and slowly but surely she is deteriorating day by day. Taking care of her is the hardest thing that I have ever seen my mother do and for sure it is the hardest thing I have ever had to deal with in my life. My grandmother is known for her vibrance, her sick wit, and the most vulgar mouth....(Sorry I had to pause for 10 minutes to pick my grandmother up off the floor as she just fell backwards...again). Carrying on...
My grandmother is a harsh woman, but a practical woman. She has a wicked sick sense of humor (as all the Fearman/Wilson women do). She has never been overly affectionate, but has more of a dry personality, and she has ALWAYS, ALWAYS been pessimistic! And with all that said...I love her. With all of my heart and soul. Evelyn is my baby and when look in the mirror it is she that stares back at me. That thought in itself is fucking NOT OKAY.

There is a dichotomy to loving a person so immensely who can and will rip a person to shreds with words, and who could and would back it up physically. She passed it on to some of the 6 children she bore (those who were strong enough, or maybe weak enough to pick this trait up and use it), and to the others who were not strong enough, their lives seem to be only shadows of the potential that they once carried. Words have the power to rip someone's destiny from their minds. I have an uncle who has been in prison my entire life and is so scared of living that he fucks himself up everytime he has a parole hearing, an uncle who is 50 and has never married and does not have children, I have an uncle who is terrified of women and who would not dare put his foot down enough to really be the man of the house, I have an aunt who has been running away since she was 13, I have an uncle who died of AIDS when I was 13 (rip Uncle Billy), and though he was the glue to the family, he did not escape the rigidity and control of my grandmother's words. And then there is my mother who despite leaving her past behind could not escape where she came from. My mother, though strong on the outside is a mushy gummy bear of a women on the inside and she carries her scars with her like Red Badges of Courage, as do I. I have a cousin who is bipolar and has been running away her whole life, and another so embittered by what she's seen and experienced that it makes it hard to love her. I have a cousin whose father resented his mother so much that he stopped dealing with him all together, and left my cousin floating in the world aimlessly with no rhyme, rhyme-scheme or reason.
And then there's me...I am Evelyn and I am not Evelyn. Sharp-tongue, quick wit. Abusive at times, cynical definitely. I have that ability to cut a person down to nothing with the power of words. I have wielded that sword and slain many an enemy and a friend with my weapon. Lord knows I can dish it...but my heart is NEVER strong enough to take it and so the big difference between I and my grandmother is simply this...
Accountability and Forgiveness

I am well aware of when I have hurt someone and it is my duty and obligation to seek forgiveness and give forgiveness always. Who in the hell am I to not forgive as I ask Him for forgiveness on an hourly basis?
Dimitra Patton told me once that it is my duty as a human being to hold people accountable for the way that they make me feel. No one in my family has ever had the balls or the backbone to confront my grandmother for the way she makes them feel. My grandmother will say ANYTHING! And people will laugh, sometimes because they think it's genuinely funny but most times it's a nervous "I can't believe this broad just said that shit!" kind of laugh. When I don't think the shit's funny, I say so and I mean it, and over the years I believe she has come to respect me for being who she is not and who she was not able to become from her own shortcomings.
She used to tell me, "I don't take shit from anyone!" While this may be true, it has taught her children and grandchildren that the people around you only wanna give you shit! My family is so rigid and so dry!
I used to want to be a Nixon soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo bad!!! Claudia laughs from the bottom of her heart! Michelle smiles from wisdom tooth to wisdom tooth! Becky is the most gentle person I've ever met! Loren always had an air of "responsibility" about him that I longed for in an uncle! And my Aunt Loretta, who has the same sick sense of humor we all have, infused her pain with a genuine light that shone through herself and through her children. She left a legacy of closeness and togetherness in her children.

My grandmother will be gone from this world one day leaving her children spread out and torn apart. Their children will carry that legacy on until our roots have been pulled up all together! This is NOT what I want for my family. I have reached out to my younger cousin and instantly we are family! But initially it was difficult. She did not know me and because of her history with my family she did not want to. You could have no idea how torn up I was about this. Time passed on and we have slowly begun to cultivate a friendship and will hopefully one day develop the closeness that I wish I had my whole life.

I challenge my grandmother's children to face their fears and break the legacy that has been bestowed upon her family. I challenge you to release these sicknesses that you use as an excuse not to fight and succeed!I challenge you to put your foot down and run your household with confidence! I challenge you to mend the broken ties between yourself and your children! I challenge you to heal! And to love! I challenge my grandmother's grandchildren to do the same and go the extra mile to surpass our parents! To go back into time and right wrongs! To face your demons and slay them! There are no more excuses! There are no more reasons not to make this family work!
I'm trying to get this all out in the most tactful way that I can before we all face each other again because I have a feeling that the next time we see each other it could...and might... and probably will get ugly. My mother is a woman who believes in maintaining her composure at all times. So the frustration she feels, the hurt and abandonment she feels she will not say. She will forgive and forget and press on. I, being Evelyn will say whatever the hell I feel and you'll deal with it however you choose so long as you don't come out of your face. I being Kisha will stand up for my mother and for my entire family in hopes that we will come together and work through this great pain we are in. It must be acknowledged to move forward and our minds must be open to healing. I love you all my family!