on retribution (fuck you jason)
here’s the thing, jason. when my psychiatrist asked me how it felt to beat your ass, i laughed. good, i told her. it felt really fucking good. and that’s not not true. my cousin matt taught me how to throw a punch when i was 13. arms level, shoulder over chin, let two knuckles connect. it’s about aim, he told me. you don’t have to throw all your weight behind it. it’s about follow thru. i’m a big girl, jason. you know that better than anyone, don’t you? you know the landscape of my body, because you fumbled and navigated it that drunk autumn night on your couch. while i slept. and you helped yourself, didn’t you, jason? i didn’t need to throw all my weight behind those punches. i carry more hate for you than i can hold in my heart.
i met riya when i was 23. she was an aries who brushed my hair for me. she is still an aries, but she is somewhere else now, brushing someone else’s hair, i imagine. she had lush green vines growing up the chipped peach tiles of her shower and on the back of her jean jacket she had a patch that screamed, in all caps, KILL YOUR RAPIST. there was an anger brewing inside of me, a stormy violet rage. riya unlocked that and we drank tea and got high and laughed gleefully at the idea of our abusers meeting violent ends. we scream back at our catcallers. i take a kickboxing class. i’m not sick or inhumane to want justice, she tells me. i’m responding in kind, i’m meeting him where he started the conversation.
so my anger steadies my voice now. my anger improves my posture, straightens my back and squares my shoulders. my anger is my constant. i could destroy him, i think. i could key his car. i could call his boss. i could paper his neighborhood with flyers, i could let roaches loose in his apartment, i could throw a brick through his window. at night i soothe myself counting revenge fantasies like sheep.
but here’s the thing, jason. there’s no equal reaction here. i thought i had the chance to settle the score and it felt good. it felt really fucking good. for about ten minutes, until i was escorted out of the bar and i called a ride and the weight of what just happened hit me. i sat on the sidewalk and a sob ripped through me. tears i promised i would never give you again, jason. and i sat on the sidewalk and i cried in my lyft until a beautiful stranger in leather shorts offered me a bottle of water. do you want to talk about it, she asked.
i did. i did want to talk about it and through runny mascara and mucusy gasps and ugly cries, i told her what happened. i told her how i saw you, and i hit you, and i screamed that you raped me, into a dark sticky bar of strangers, while your friend called me a crazy bitch, until the bouncers came to pull me off of you. she told me i was amazing. she told me i was brave, and that i had done what so many women had dreamed of. i do not feel brave. i feel tired.
i feel so tired when i get home that i sit down in the shower for what feels like hours. i don’t realize how long it’s been until the water runs cold and my skin burns and my toes are wrinkled and i look like a soft pink crab. freshly molted. i carry more sorrow than i can hold in my heart.
in the morning i think of the girl in the leather shorts. i think of riya. would she be proud? i don’t know. i’ve become a host body to my anger. it’s taken it’s own life in me and i realize that no revenge could satiate the monster that has been allowed to grow, unchecked, inside of me. i still hate you. but i don’t want to kill you. not anymore. there’s no justice to be had here. there’s no eye for an eye; i’ve been letting myself walk around blind. i want to walk away from you. you do not deserve the space in my head and my heart that you occupy. but i guess that’s just kind of your style, isn’t it?
