life

257: Thankful for Naked People

| Aspergers Girls

Surprise:

This was  a wonderful, wonderful surprise.  (Click to find out) After a heavy week of processing and feeling less than desirable, and looping and having little sleep, I found this link on my statistical page of my blog. Sigh. The words are truly divine timing for me. I am ever so thankful for this kind woman’s heart and honesty. Thank you!

Yesterday’s post had some interesting photos. A couple of people commented, including my husband. I am curious if any super highly intuitive people got what I was trying to convey artistically. If you didn’t, you can pretend you did, because I’m about to tell you.

For me, the emotion conveyed and pouring through my blood, in both the poem and in the letter to my Lord, was the extreme pressure I feel in being human, particularly in the way people judge one another based on a variety of reasons, including conclusions drawn by collective perceptions and experience. My photos, to me, were conveying a false me. An illusion, you could say, of a person who would be mistook as perhaps mean, shallow, conceded, lustful, angry, or desperate and needy. I was attempting to convey a photo that did not represent my light side, but my shadow side.  I personally love the photos, as they are gutsy, real, and a part of me I haven’t let out of the bag until now. Meow! Scratch! Scratch!

With that said, I was going to pose naked for this post….but thought that might be stretching the limit.

I was at my masseuse today, processing and processing, and talking poor little Sue Happy’s ears off. That’s what I call my masseuse, because her name is Sue and she is perpetually happy. I was so into my heavy talk and deep thoughts…super deep, like the…. (now that sounds provocative!) As I was saying, I was into some deep stuff, like the potentiality to change the view I have of a relative based on the truth that we each create in our minds a perception of a person; so that if each person were looking at one person, say a woman, then each perception of said woman would be different based on who was viewing her. In other words, there would be several versions of the same woman existing simultaneously based on the observer, with not one single version being the right perception . And if I could thoroughly grasp this concept, and the illusion of perception, then I could feasibly adapt the perception of many of the other people looking at the woman, and merge that adapted perception into my current perception, minus the non-beneficial thoughts, in order to recreate a more positive and healthy version of said-woman.

Yes, I said all that at super high-speed, in one huge sentence.

Patient, loving Sue Happy.

Sue Happy did say my feet were the most balanced she’d ever seen them. That’s saying something. I immediately thought of the gut-wrenching, desperate-kneeling, and wailing I did in the shower yesterday; and thought perhaps that my virtual throwing up of said self was the secret to balanced feet.

I didn’t say that to Sue; nor did I say I was talking fast as a result of the Mocha Coffee.

Anyhow, my point was, I was being super, super deep and serious, and quite complex for most bipeds. And that is when I decided I needed to shift the energy. Luckily, I know how to crack myself up, and I know how to think quickly. I had this great idea come at me all at once for a Thanksgiving post. Something off the wall. I would post a short story of the nude beach and make the title: Thankful for Clothes.

After some consideration, I withdrew that initial thought.

It was Thanksgiving after all. I then came to the conclusion that a more enticing title for the holiday would include the word naked. Of course the following song immediately popped in my head.

Only they were naked. And that really made me laugh. I envisioned all the naked people dancing to this song on the nude beach. And I was instantly healed from all the trauma of the nude beaches! No…not really. But I did have a good laugh. Naked jiggly-parts, and all.

Here is the short story. For the sake of honoring my mother, I did take out several descriptions I had of her breasts. This did affect the overall artistic touch of this story. But even I know when to draw the line: NO description of your mother’s boobies on Thanksgiving! I assumed boyfriend’s butt-crack was okay. Hope I didn’t ruin your pumpkin pie!

Thankful for Clothes

Ben turned back. “Good day, Pretty Ladies.”

Ever cautious, I replied, “Thank you.”

Ben winked and then turned around and snapped the cap of a beer bottle off with his teeth.

“We look like one of those families on television, with our car piled up with blankets and food, and our smiling faces,” said Mother.  “Like the Brady Bunch.  Or what’s that other show?”

“The Partridge Family,” I muttered.

“Yeah.  More like them.”

I rubbed my bare feet between my dog’s tight curls and pulled a string from the seat cover.  Ben’s daughter, Shara, giggled and kicked her legs up and down.  Her round little belly protruded out from her top, exposing what looked to be the tie of a latex balloon.

Ben cleared his throat. “You know we went out of our way to get ready.  It probably took us a good hour just to pack up the car, not to mention the time we had to wait for you to finish going to the bathroom and find Justice’s leash.  I hope you appreciate all your mother does.” Ben finished, flashed a half-smirk, turned away, and patted Mother on her bare knee.  They exchanged a knowing smile.  I grabbed my stomach and threw up.

 

The rest of the story has been removed, because I wanted to keep it private. 🙂

 

256: Old Enough To Know

| Aspergers Girls

Old Enough To Know

I am old enough to know that though I am the snowflake, unique and divine, I too melt into the familiar element of water.

I am old enough to know that I am seen by eyes of discernment and reason, divided and mixed into an illusion by the creator.

I am old enough to know that in a world of invented polarities, that if chance lives, then so must destiny.

I am old enough to know that to hold my deepest carved pain is to embrace the manifestation of sorrow as majestic joy set a slumber.

I am old enough to know that what I put inside comes out, and thusly, what I put out enters within.

I am old enough to know that I exist in the meeting point between question and answer, a universal foundation behind an imaginary zero.

I am old enough to know that I am thought, put together into a recognizable form based on experience.

I am old enough to know that I heal from without, by reaching beyond the limitless of accepting into the recognition of collective.

I am old enough to know that if time were to exist then I be but a child aged backwards.

I am old enough to know that truth exists in the absence of all sense and the absence of thought.

I am old enough to know that through the windows beyond the depths of my molecular structure, I am old enough to know.

~~~ By Samantha Craft, November 21, 2012

Dear Lord,

What do you want from me? I have endured so much suffering on so many levels for so very long, and I have remained loyal and faithful and true. I have never betrayed you or your wishes. I have continued to try my best, and try and try. I have prayed. I have wept. I have fallen down again and again. Even when I could not feel you, I rose up again and carried on. I am light. I know this. But I am darkness. And the darkness engulfs and strangles and terrifies, the intensity unnerving and never-ending. Tormented in dreams, in thoughts, in knowings. Seeing things others cannot. I am not an angel. I am not without end. I am not infinity. There is a point within me that ends. I feel it. I feel the wall, the pressure and the might of the world upon me. I cannot play these games of war, where I am both the feud and the field, trampled upon by my own doing. There is so much of me, that I swim and drown, and come up again breathless for your love. And you reach down, and hold, only I cannot feel you or know you—some form of absence you be. All around me are vibrations and energies and touch, a rhythm, and endless rhythm of three. You haunt me with the comings of protest and acceptance, of looking and revealing, of touching and stinging, of turmoil released, to only reveal more turmoil. I am layered and then layered again. The filling between me sectioned with micro-prisms of expansion. I am universe upon universe. I am told the secrets and the whispers, hearing the righteous words; yet walking alone. The treasure is thick and burdensome, and unfamiliar to strangers. I am mocked for what I carry or accepted for my secrets alone. My beauty is skin deep when draped in the mystery of you. They want not what they see, but what they feel, and I am made to weep as a vessel forgotten. I have pleaded, this small delicate one, from the insides of canvased walls, a babe weeping to her master. I have cried upon the fabric of night, the casing decorating my very soul, as tears carry away the mystery thus revealed. Humbled and humbled again, and still yet I beg for humility. A prideful veil I wear to match those with which I walk. I am moved asunder, beckoned by truth, yet ever made to be this flesh. For whatever it takes, I am yours. For whatever it takes, I am—as a wrecking ball upon myself, I crash and crush, decimating the horror within. I reach, further into desert soul, to bring out another upon another of mystery unknown and unspoken. And still you come, with chain and ball, to set the ways upon me, this child forlorn.

255: The Fig

| Aspergers Girls

A lovely blogging friend commented that she can see both peace and sadness in my eyes.  I think I was born with the sadness. I don’t know from when or where, but it seems to have always been in the depths of me.  As far as the peace is concerned, that is something that has taken extreme dedication, focus, and prayer to acquire.

This is a short story from the many writings I did in efforts to heal myself. I believe I shared this piece before but cannot remember. I spent a period of four years writing. I collected some 265 typed pages in the form of a manuscript, much of which I have shared on this blog. People have inquired about the idea of me writing a book. I used to be hyper-focused on becoming a published author, so much that it became my goal and identity. With time, I came to a deep inner peace about my works; I understood that the passion for writing a book, though a necessary passion at the time, came from a place of ego and self-want. I am not attached to publishing any longer, especially not attached to gaining monies or recognition. I pray continually for humility and what is best for my higher good and those of others.  I maintain an energy of release when I write: the release of stagnant energy, the release of want, of validation, of need. I write purely in hopes of being a light and answering my calling. I put intention and healing vibration behind every word. In most of my writing there is a distinct rhythm. This rhythm is intentional, and filled with my love. If I heal along the way, that is a wonderful bonus. What is more important to me, at this point in my journey, is giving to the world. That is what life means to me.

The Fig (Based on True Events)

By Samantha Craft

In some ways, during the first year at our duplex, our home served as a transitional stopping point for strangers:  a person would arrive and rent out our spare bedroom and then, as if they’d landed on the jail space on the board game of Monopoly, after a few rolls of the dice, they’d move on.

Our first roommate, kindly Jeff, a man in his early twenties, arrived a few months after Mother and I had moved in.  Sprouting a fantastic full head of cherry-red clown hair, Jeff was entirely intriguing—from his gigantic gold-rimmed glasses to the smooth glass eye with an iris-blue center he’d pop out from time to time and let me examine up close in my hand.  Jeff had a puttering V.W. Bug that jerked and spat and carried us to fancy places like the local Taco Bell and the red-boxed television booth at the corner Lucky grocery store where I could watch Woody Woodpecker cartoons.  Sometimes, my favorite sometimes, Jeff carried home his work case laden with the grocery store price numbers, each type housed in its own tiny pull out drawer.  They were a hard flexible-plastic, nothing I’d seen or touched before.  These clear drawers and the miniature treasures inside each drawer out rated any old doll house in my book.

For a very short while, Ruth, an eccentric plump puppeteer with wiry-white hair, lived in our home.  She also had a case, but a much more impressive wooden one which housed her enormous stringed-puppets. Though the puppeteer wasn’t with us long, I fondly recall her performing puppet shows with her life-sized floppy marionettes out on our front patio.

 

The rest is in my book 🙂

 

Post 251: Holy Water

| Aspergers Girls

This story is dedicated to a dear blogging friend Kindred Spirit, who made me giggle at mention of my experiences being ordinary. Here’s one for you Bro!

Holy Water  

by Samantha Craft (based on real life events; some events altered.)

My dog Justice curled up beneath our coffee table gurgling and gnawing at his backside.  I sat cracking open smiling pistachios.  A few paces away, Mother faced our antique German cabinet, her look overcome with concern.  “You know what?” Mother asked.

My eyes sought out the angles of her body, falling on her slight hips and then her tense shoulders.  I responded softly while setting a pistachio between my teeth, “What, Mom?”  Mother turned.  I met her eyes with a curious stare, recognizing at once the nervous thickness in her thoughts, and then swept a cluster of pistachio shells across the table into a small concise circle. I waited.

Mother faced me with the full of her body, the ends of her tangled hair resting against her bulging collarbone.  “I think there is something wrong with the cabinet.”

From the corner of our living room the massive mahogany cabinet stood stoically surrounded by a hodgepodge of second-hand furniture, appearing like a polished soldier amongst a gathering of dusty-faced peasants.  The cabinet’s aged glass reflected an opaque wave of Mother, as she made her way to the couch near Justice and me.  “There’s something not right about it; that’s all,” she said.

I stretched my legs beneath the coffee table and rubbed my toes through the fibers of the carpet, trying to brush the topic away.  Nearby Mother tapped her newly-polished fingernails on the dusty coffee table. Looking down at Justice chewing away at his backside, I remembered the story of how Mother had crashed through the ancient glass front of the cabinet when she was a teenager, after tilting her dining room chair back too far.  I preoccupied myself by calculating the age of the present day pane of glass, and then thought about my mother’s father, denture-wearing, fiddle playing Grandpa Willy, wondering what he looked like now, figuring how many hours it would take to drive for a visit.

Lighting up a cigarette, Mother inhaled deeply, and then blew out.  “I think the cabinet is possessed,” she offered casually.

I bit down hard on pistachio shell and gave out a nervous little laugh.

Mother grinned.  Two fingers embraced her cigarette and pressed against her lips.  I thought about Buddy One, my imaginary ghost friend; he hadn’t moved downstairs with us to the bottom duplex.  Mother picked up a stack of green-backed tarot cards and set them on a table to her side.  “With all your dreams that come true and the noises and voices you hear, even that ghost friend of yours, I can’t help but think something is causing all of this.  And when you think about it, that cabinet has faced your bedroom in the last four places we’ve lived.”

I took in a deep breath, grabbed a day old glass of lemonade and drank, taking the bitter with the sweet, not knowing if I should laugh or cry.  Scenes from Casper the Friendly Ghost and The Exorcist flashed before me.  How I longed for a brother or sister to elbow me in the side and say, “Don’t worry.  It’s all pretend.”

Before supper, Mother appeared at my side with her orange-flowered overnight bag and tossed a grocery sack my direction.  I peeked inside the bag to find a yellow onion skin stuck to the bottom.  “Fill this up,” Mother said. “We’re going.”

The sun was low on the horizon when a woman with wispy-white hair and a whimsical Muumuu opened her front door.  Justice lapped at my tennis shoes and cowered behind my knees, while I tugged on his leash, trying to steady his body.

Minutes later Justice and I followed Mother, as she huffed back to the car with sober steps. I knew beyond a doubt that the combination of Mother’s somber face and conspiratorial tone, blended in with the tale of the spirit in the cabinet, had led to our early departure.  Her actions were indeed strange, but not without merit.  I myself had experienced the dreams which came true; Mother’s theory was as good as the next.  Reflecting on my dead bird and hustling down the dirt walkway with Justice, I counted myself lucky to have a parent that cared.

The next path Mother led me up was a granite-crushed walkway.  This time Justice remained in the car.  After we reached the front door of an expansive ranch-style home and Mother rapped a brass knocker, the door opened to a delicate aroma of roses and a middle-aged man in a paisley tie. The man wiped his hands on the pockets of his denim apron.  “How can I help you?” he asked, his dark blue eyes sweeping the neckline of Mother’s low-cut shirt.

Mother straightened her posture and pushed me forward. I flashed a broken-tooth grin, focused downward on my lavender-starred shoelaces and began counting the stars.

“Is Barbara home?”  Mother asked.

“Sure, just a sec…. I’ll run and get her for you.”

Mother’s knuckles were whitening as she gripped my hand.

Barbara appeared wearing a dramatic aquamarine scarf and holding a wooden spoon.  She looked surprised to see us.  “Is everything all right?  Did something happen at the office?”

“Oh no, that’s all fine.”  Mother paused and gave me the evil-eye. “Keep still.”     Shrinking from Mother’s words, I stopped shuffling my feet on the woven doormat, cast my eyes sideways, and clenched my fists.

“Actually, you see, we need a favor.  We can’t stay at our house tonight,” Mother said.

“Oh?”

“We need a place to stay.”

A frown creased Barbara’s brow.  “I don’t understand. Is everything all right?  Is there something wrong?”

Mother leaned towards Barbara. “Well, you see.  I know this sounds extreme, but I have some evidence that…” Mother stopped to clear her throat.  “Actually, you see there is something in our cabinet.”

Barbara stepped onto the porch.  “What are you talking about?”

I stepped backwards and hid behind my mother’s back.

Mother put her hands on her hips.  “What I’ve been trying to tell you, is there is a spirit in our cabinet.  And you see we need a place to stay; but only for tonight, that is—just until the exorcism.”  Mother looked down as if she were embarrassed by her own words.

Giving an odd glance and shifting back, Barbara moved through the entryway into her house.  She closed the door until only her face showed.  “This isn’t a good time.  I’ve got dinner on the stove and we’re expecting company.  I’m sorry.”  With that the door shut completely and a cool wind swept across the porch.

Sometime after sunset, sitting in the backseat of the car, listening to the song Don’t Cry Out Loud, I stroked Justice’s hairy chin and thought by all fairytale accounts Mother should have already made some headway—made a step past someone’s threshold.  After all even the Big Bad Wolf blows down two houses before failing and two of the three Billy Goats pass over the bridge without consequence.

After a quick stop at a gas station for cigarettes and nine dimes into the pay telephone later, Mother eyed the rearview mirror as if some entity might be on our tail and weaved ahead through the darkening night at a frightful speed.  The car jolted and bounced, climbing over a scattering of rocks, until we landed on a wide gulf where a blur of an ash-colored tomcat disappeared behind the porch swing.

Inside the house, Mother sucked an extended puff from a cigarette. “Every time I try to get my life in order something happens.”  Her lower lip jutted upwards and she let out an exaggerated exhale.  The smoke reached my eyes, my nostrils, my lungs, and I let out a sequence of coughs.  I sneezed into my hands.  Justice’s ears perked up from under the coffee table.  Mother’s dark-haired friend nodded and the conversation continued, meandering from relationships to work, and back again to the haunted cabinet.  I curled on top of a lumpy couch and closed my eyes.

In the late morning mother and I arrived at our duplex and sat on the small patio near the front entry. A priest, donned in a traditional high-white collar and long black robe, emerged from around the corner carrying a weathered briefcase across our dew-wet grass. Looking like she hadn’t slept in days, Mother rose from our front porch and extended her hand.  After a few pleasantries, Mother unlocked the front door and led the priest inside our dark living room.  After following them inside, I sat in the far corner watching them both: my gaunt mother and the stately-looking priest, with Justice’s breath hot on my face.

The priest, wasting no time, took out a miniature glass bottle from his leather case. He unscrewed the bottle, recited a few biblical verses and sprinkled water on and around the base of the cabinet.  After reciting a prayer, he twisted the lid back on, opened his case, placed the bottle inside, snapped the case closed, and looked at the two of us.  “I hope that helps,” he said.

Mother reached into her jean pocket, pulled out a folded bill, and handed it to the priest. “Thank you so much, Father. You’ve really helped us. I don’t know what we would have done without you.”

The priest nodded his head and tucked his briefcase under his arm. “You and your daughter are welcome to our church anytime.  We are just around the corner.”

I rose up off of the carpet and calmed Justice with a brush to his head, nodding politely at the priest.  The priest smiled, waved, and rang out a pleasing God Bless You and then showed himself out the door.

With the priest gone and the evil spirit banished, Mother disappeared into her bedroom, while I remained in the dark staring out at the cabinet.

The story had not ended like I’d expected.  No green-faced monster had popped his ferocious spinning head out from the depths of the cabinet.  No lightening bolts had appeared.  In fact, there wasn’t any evidence of anything out of the ordinary at all.  There were no answers or explanations.  It was as if I was stuck in the middle of some long storybook, unable to flip back to the beginning and start over and equally incapable of proceeding forward to the end. After all the running away and hype, all the embarrassment and fear, there was nothing to show in the end.  Only Mother’s deep snores trumpeting from the backroom and Justice licking up the trickling drops of holy water.

Post 250: It’s Raining Men

| Aspergers Girls

Anyone else roller skate to this music?

Lately, I’ve been admitting love.

I post love on my blog, on my social network page, and admit love to my friends.

It’s been very freeing and healing.

I’ve also been processing through past relationships with men.

Until last week, I saw myself as a real victim in love relationships.

In the beginning of my “dating” years, which actually started at age five, (No kidding; I always loved boys. My first “date” was at Keith’s house, where he introduced me to his favorite delicacy, peanut butter and mayonnaise sandwiches. I politely gagged.)….

In the beginning of my boyfriend-girlfriend years, I attracted very safe males: sweet, kind, friendly, and truthful. I was fortunate to have two boyfriends in high school (at separate times), after I moved back to California, that treated me with the up most respect and love. But something shifted at about the age of twenty. Perhaps it was being away from my extended family and not having a father that adored me. Or perhaps the shift was brought on by insecurities surrounding college or finally “growing up.” Regardless, at the age of twenty I began falling for whomever paid attention to me. For seven years my relations with men were bleak and tumultuous.

So often, in my twenties, the man I “chose” was addicted or abusive or both. I felt used physically, and was often dumped out like last week’s beer bottles—left clanging and spinning down a steep hill of depression. For years and years I blamed these men for their character and callousness. I cringed at the thought of these people not loving ME! How could they not? What was wrong with me?

A few days ago, I suddenly had a knowing. I suddenly saw in full picture, a truth. I wasn’t a victim. I wasn’t used and tossed out. There wasn’t a right person or wrong person in my sexual drama. I attracted men at the same level I was at spiritually and emotionally. (I had to leave out mentally, and just giggle. I was always smarter! Lol.)

But most telling, I realized at the center core of me the profound truth: that in fact I USED THEM.

In my mind I had thought that their “crime” was using me physically; and how could any crime be worse than that type of invasion? However, my crime was equal. I was a “villain” too. I used them. I chose to be with a man I didn’t like and didn’t respect, in order to not be alone. I used men!

Suddenly this ah-ha moment swept me away, and time stopped. I traveled back to a dozen relationships, and revisited and swept clean the energy attachment. Within seconds, I’d forgiven the men and myself. The labels were released. The words of scumbag, loser, liar, addict, etc. that I applied to the men, vanished. And then, presto, the labels slut, stupid, blinded, desperate that I’d branded to my energy field disappeared too! I began to see the men as other spirits on their journey. I began to see I was never victimized. I understood that using is using, whether it be of flesh or emotion. And then I released the using label, too. We weren’t using. We just were. We were existing, surviving, journeying. We just were. And so it goes.

Here is a prior entry about my experience with men

(reposted from past entry)

The Dance with Don

(notice the tone of this…written before my ah-ha moment.)

The highlight of my dating career had to be the season I spent with the habitual lying, sexually addicted Don—a spineless man five years my senior who behaved ten years my junior.  At first glance I’d fallen head-over-sandals in love with Don.  The summer day he confidently strode through the Catholic daycare where I worked, I’d tucked myself halfway behind a shelf of books and drooled over his perpetually sun-kissed skin.  He was everything I’d wanted, dark and handsome, and tall enough to look down at me with his bedroom eyes.

The times Don and I were together weaved in and out sporadically through a span of half a decade.  When I first met Don he was separated from wife number one; when I last reunited with Don, he was struggling to patch it up with wife number two.  I was the in-between, but one Don swore up and down he intended to marry.

The majority of our relationship played out like an ill-plotted soap opera, with me as the dimwitted, star-struck mistress and Don as the notorious villain.

There were definite reasons I stuck around. With Don came a familiarity of unpredictability.  He was my locomotive, the one I could catch a ride on and speed through the world with a view I remembered—one of constant change and chaos.

For a long while, I’d do anything I could to win Don over. I’d forgive his shortcomings and mysterious disappearing acts, and demean myself in different ways.

In our first months together, when I was still hopeful, there’d been major red flags.  Don had no home phone number or address.  His scorned, soon to be ex-wife, had warned me to have nothing to do with Don.  And Don’s truck was mysteriously breaking down, in an accident, short on gas, or had a flat tire, many of the nights he was supposed to be with me.

I was good at rationalizing his actions and taking his lies as truth.  I found reasons to stay, like the fact that Father liked Don and that Don eventually showed up.

I was twenty-years-old and newly accepted into the teaching credential program at the university the weekend I learned of Don’s other woman.  It was either the Saturday I’d scrubbed Don’s toilet, or the time I’d obsessively lined his kitchen shelves; no matter, it was the eventful afternoon I came face-to-face with a woman out for blood.

I’d been oblivious of course, hadn’t a clue Don had flirted with a seventeen year old outside of the construction site where he worked, slept with her, and possibly fathered her baby.

For some time there had been hints of another woman.  All along Don had pushed back our framed photos or even turned them face down, forgetting to place them back up in their right position when I arrived.  And I love you posters and cards I had made for Don had been rearranged on the wall or re-taped in another room of his cheap apartment.

The one of many climatic events of our relationship began with a loud knock at the door, an initially startling noise that momentarily displaced me, until I assumed Don missed another rent payment or lost another spousal support check.  By the second series of knocks, I’d headed toward the front door, and would have unlocked the knob, if Don had not, in one swift pull, yanked me backwards by the tail of my shirt and whispered, “Don’t.”

It was then I heard her voice for the first time, a high-pitched scream to the tune of:  “Open the damn door, Don.  I know you are in there.”

I wasn’t that far gone in my oblivion love state, not to recognize the voice of another woman.  With immediacy I scowled at Don like he’d taken my only prized possession, and pushed my palms into his chest, wanting to hurt him like he’d just pained me.

Don stepped back, taking my hands into his, and mouthing, “I’m sorry.  I love you.  I only love you.”  He then released my hands and tugged down nervously on his neon-green tank top. “I meant to tell you.  I swear,” he said, widening his dark eyes in remorse like I’d seen him do a dozen times before. “If I told you, if you found out, I was afraid you’d leave me.  And she was a horrible mistake.  I didn’t want her to be the reason we lost such a good thing.  I love you so much.  You know I do.  You have to trust me.”

Before I could make up my mind about what to do, there was one final series of knocks, and the voice came again, only louder and more determined: “If you don’t open this damn door, I’m going to kick it down!”

What happened next still amazes me, and proves once again the strength that can be found in pure rage.  Within a few seconds of her last knock, there was one heavy kick of her foot, followed by several more, and then, without warning the door broke off of its hinges, the side paneling splintering, and the whole of the door slammed down inside the apartment.

There, amongst the settling dust, in marched a skinny girl, no taller than five-feet, cradling a screaming newborn in her arms.  Boiling with revenge, she charged Don like some creature from a Japanese horror flick, with her arms outstretched growling for revenge.  On reaching Don, she punched him once in the chest and then shoved the baby at him.  “Take her!” she ordered, back stepping and turning her head with a whip of her dirty-blond hair.

From behind the couch, I tracked the baby’s wrinkled arms flailing, and then gasped as the girl moved towards me.  Her eyes were on fire as she shouted at full-throttle, “I’m going to kill you, Bitch!”

Without thought, I ducked around Don and attempted to make my way to the doorway.   Don didn’t waste anytime.  Before I had a chance to maneuver myself around the girl, Don had tossed the baby on the couch, grabbed his bike, carried it down the apartment stairs, and rode off.

For a few seconds both the girl and I stared out the doorway with disbelief, and then we stared down at the tiny infant crying on the couch, until the girl’s raging eyes met mine, and she roared, “You’re dead!”

From where she stood, prepared to launch, I could smell my scent on her, the expensive bottle of perfume I received from my father for my birthday, which had recently gone missing from my bathroom shelf.

As the girl stormed forward, I managed to swerve around her.  She lunged at me, barely swiping my shoulder.  I jumped over a small ottoman, snatched up my car keys and practically flew down a flight of concrete stairs.

In the narrow carport, I started my sedan and backed up.  Just as I was about to turn out of the apartment complex, the frenzied girl’s enormous boat-of-a-station wagon came charging forward and blocked my way out.

Seconds later, leaving the baby wailing on the front seat of the car, the girl marched across the parking lot to my car window and ordered, “Roll down your window!”

Caught between a place of disbelief and hysteria, I shook my head and whimpered, “I didn’t know.  I didn’t know.”

The girl’s face turned from one of frozen-ice to empathetic-disgust.  She tapped on the glass of the window a few times, and then rolled her eyes up letting out a long heavy sigh.  Finally, seemingly understanding my predicament, she waved me off with a shake of her hand, before stomping back to her car.

After she sped off, I remained in the parking lot, uncertain of what I’d gotten myself into, and more uncertain of how I would ever find my way out of my contorted labyrinth.