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{secret} evan park sand My boyfriend was having an affair. Three months ago it ended. He told me about it. I said that I was deeply hurt by his actions. But I wasn’t. One month ago, I picked-up the phone and somebody hung-up. The following week I opened his email. There was a letter in there, from her. It said that she is pregnant. With his child. I deleted that email. Months down the road from that email and he has no idea it ever came. No other email followed. No other phone calls have come. :: I have grown into something that terrifies me. A model of self-improvement. Utilizing my temple, my holy vessel, I have taken time to grow. Taller in some ways than any other human around me. And for this, I find fault in all of them. I am writing in my diary for the first time in years, because everything has spun out of control. A terrible appetite has consumed me. My perfection in craft is astonishing. I am writing because I need to talk to myself. I need to read to myself, like I am still a child, calmed and comforted by a motherly voice that is not mine. I have secrets. They are my sustenance. They are my food. My temple. My knife. :: I lay in my boyfriend’s arms at night. And nearly every night he asks me why I won’t wear our engagement ring. I tell him that I don’t like rings. I tell him that I never have worn rings. He strokes my forehead and says, I know – you are carrying a lot with you. He says, I know – anyone raped at such a young age, seethes forever. Especially when it is one of your own. He says, I know, this is a flame that will never extinguish. He says, I understand, commitment will always feel tenuous. He says, I am sorry. For himself. For that person in my past. :: I work in an office. Sometimes I sit at my desk and click the stapler hundreds of times when it is empty. I tell the secretary that I need more staples. She orders them for me. Then I take all the boxes home with me. These boxes have completely filled-up my underwear drawer. :: I like having sex with my boyfriend. He says that he loves it when I slip-off my underwear in the dark and then slide under the sheets with him. He says he likes to pretend that I am his doctor, coming to heal him. I don’t tell him that I like to pretend too. I have been with my boyfriend for two years now. He has never given me an orgasm. But he doesn’t know that. And he doesn’t know that I love faking it. The only reason I like having sex with him is because I get to practice hiding. Secrets. I love getting better. :: My boyfriend works late. Sometimes I go the hotel near my work and sit at the bar. At a table. I cross and uncross my legs down the aisle. When I was eighteen I pierced my nipples. Not because I like how it feels when I am quivering afterward, silent and in the closet, alone – but I like feeling them rub on my bra. Mostly just because it’s my secret, something that no naughty-body else knows about. Sometimes I let the secret out. On cold days. When I don’t wear a bra. :: We are months down the road. Away from an affair. My boyfriend says that it’s trash day. The recycling bin is full. I make a last round through the apartment, collecting anything that looks like a recyclable. My boyfriend sighs. My colored trash cans full of newspapers and aluminum cans irritate him. Little does he know that every week I carry these bins out with the trash and empty them in the dumpster. He doesn’t even know that there is no recycling service in our building. :: Sometimes, on my way home, I write obscene notes on pieces of paper and slip them under the windshield wipers of random cars. They say things like: You have a great ass. I wish I weren’t married, or I’d rape you. I want to shove my tongue inside you. I screwed your husband. Ever wonder why your wife is so late coming home? You are a liar. Your bed sheets felt good when I came last week. I always leave one last note on the car in front of mine, when I’m done scattering them all over the parking lot. Then I crawl in the back seat and wait… :: When I leave the hotel after work, after sitting in the bar, after teasing… I always stop at the gift shop. I like stealing the bundles of flowers that they have in the coolers. Most of the time, I take them to my dying mother. Sometimes I feel bad about those flowers. Knowing that they will never even be seen. My mother can’t open her eyes. She is going to die any day. But mostly I smile when I drive away. :: A lot of days - after I get home, I drink a couple glasses of wine. Alcohol makes me urinate. Then I take a bubble bath. Then, my boyfriend comes home. Nearly always – he wants to get in the tub with me. So I invite him, just before I finish warming up the tub with a bladder full of pee. I have never shared this with any one. This was a secret. :: Some days I will wander around the mall after work. This, after I discovered the power in being a woman. Since I was much younger, I figured-out that I can get away with just about anything. But nobody knows that I know this much. I play stupid. As a result I can talk to whomever I wish to. Some times I will walk up to strange men. I will say: You are handsome. You carry yourself well. You are beautiful. You are okay. This, when I don’t mean any of it. And so I really do tell the truth when I crawl into my bubble bath at the end of the day. When my boyfriend looks down at me and asks, how is your world, babe? I always answer, much richer now. :: I need my secrets. Because of that, I haven’t told my boyfriend many things. This in itself is a secret. One thing I didn’t say was I really was looking over his shoulder, when I pretended I wasn’t – when he was typing his password in at the computer. I read all of his emails. Another thing I have never said is that I picked you – from across that room. I picked you, you did not pick me. I picked you because I love dark disappointment, welling-up inside me. And if you nothing, then you are something that resembles a black meltdown. :: Or maybe I have been wrong Maybe I have wronged myself. Maybe I am no longer selecting anything. Instead, everything is selecting me. Because of my past. Because of experience. Because of that hulking thing called habit which trails behind you, lumpy over the years, and quiet in its skate through time. But most often, on one of those hills, the force of coming down from the apex and the rope bunches-up and somehow wraps itself, miraculously – time and time again – elegantly, like a symphony, around your neck. Maybe my secrets have intersected under a red light, at the exact point of collision. And maybe this occurred years and years ago. And maybe my secrets grew into lies. I implore: What is the difference? :: I am sitting on the edge of the bed. After sex. After faking it real good. Even better than last time. I feel a hand on my shoulder. My boyfriend is looking down, over my sculpted clavicle. He says, I thought you took-off your underwear? I say, I did. He says, there’s nothing down there. No underwear. Where? I stand, letting his hand fall from my shoulder, like disappointment. With two hands I open my dresser drawer. It slides, slowly, open. In demonstration, I open my hand to the drawer. I have not worn underwear for years. Since I was a little girl. I don’t even own any. I say, this underwear drawer is a guise. A rouse. I steal boxes of staples from work and now this drawer is full. Of boxes. Of staples. :: My boyfriend is the appearance of minor shock. I have never said anything about another body, another man, another man, another love. A love, at all. He says, your past. Your past, I know. It has to be rough. Rape is such a caustic, terrible four-letter word. Maybe you should finally tell your parents. Tell a therapist. Tell somebody. You can’t keep this all inside, forever… Because now there is only this, your drawers and underwear and staples? He laughs. I guess that it’s the perfect metaphor, really… I say, no. I have secrets. I always have… He interrupts: We all do. Nearly offended, I say no, not like me. I do not test as a genius on any scale, except this one. In my secrets, I am a genius. My boyfriend is the appearance of minor indignation. I say, you never even opened-up my underwear drawer. Even though you like that part of our sexual routine. I say, there is so much I haven’t said. My boyfriend is the appearance of waiting. Wanting. Listening. He says, I know. Being molested at such a young age. That needs to be spoken out loud. It’s like a virus – spit it out! It has a chance to go away… I say no, at work… I sneeze into my desk drawers. Instead of using tissues. Because I don’t think that I will be there very long. I say, I fake every orgasm with you. He looks at me, imploringly. Scared. The shadows of bars marks his forehead. I say that I have more secrets, but one that I want you to know. That I need you to know. My boyfriend is the appearance of bracing. Up against the bars. I say, my rape? My secret is: It never happened. |
