disappear
first day of work. gosh, it's crazy. i love them, all the kids, from the tiny little 3's and 4's in the frog classes to the 14-yr-old kid in my barracudas class. but teaching is insane; some of my classes are great, others are terrors. some of the kids love the water; one little boy wouldn't even put his feet in. it's sometimes fun, sometimes frustrating, always tiring. it's a great job though -- i'm not complaining. it's just a lot to handle all at once. i feel like it's been ages since i've been part of the "real" world. and here i am, stepping back into it (actually it's really like being thrown back into it), and i'm not sure how i feel about it. not that it really matters; life goes on.i couldn't sleep last night. i was lying there awake in my bed, thinking, my mind falling, racing, from one thing to another. somehow i stumbled across memories of him. it's been so long since i've allowed myself to think -- to really and honestly think -- about him. but i did. and i remember: from the moment i met him i adored him. he had some kind of fix over me; there was something about him that made me want his approval so desperately. it was always like that, even from the very beginning. i'd do anything to make him smile, make him laugh, just for a single word from him or an approving glance. he liked me too, i was his favorite. (and i never questioned that; i never once questioned why.) once at swim practice i almost drowned. we were doing underwaters and i pushed myself too far; i swam about 38 meters or so before my consciousness started to fade. by the time i had swam the full 50 meters i was dead to the world and sinking like a rock toward the bottom of the pool. they told me later what it was like, how he was there within seconds, grabbing me and pulling me out before the lifeguards could even get to me, how he was about to give me CPR when i started coughing up the water that had settled in my lungs. and when i came to, i heard his voice in my ear, i was sitting with him on the pool deck, leaning back against his chest, his arms wrapped around me to hold me up. he was making jokes about it because everyone was so afraid, and i could tell he had been too, but i was ok and he knew that. he watched me so carefully after that, he took such good care of me, gave me even more attention than he ever had before, and i lavished in it because i adored him, and i needed him. somewhere after that, and i'm not sure just when, things changed. not in a weird sudden kind of way, but in a desperately subtle kind of way that not even i noticed. the worse things got for me, the more i needed him. and he still paid attention to me, but his attention shifted to other things. we didn't focus on swimming anymore; we focused instead on how thin i was getting. we talked every day about what i was eating (or more often what i was not eating). and it started to get weird; it started to change. i wasn't proud of myself anymore when i was around him. walking into his office every day i felt like an abused dog, so afraid and terrified of making a single sound, of making a wrong move and being subjected to his wrath, although he never once got angry with me. i still needed him, i was starving for his approval, for his smile, for his attention. but when it rains it pours, and that year of my life it stormed so hard that i can't make sense of it all: the hollowness in my eyes, my tears, my desperation, my grief, the collection that he kept of scraps of paper with all the food i had eaten recorded on them and his words his promises his hands all over my legs and the screams that got lost somewhere inside because you betrayed me and you lied to me and you turned your back on me when i needed you the most i loved you and i adored you and i trusted you but what was i to you just some porno body that you could look at every day and feel up when you wanted not a soul not a person not a human being and especially not a little girl never a little girl I WAS A LITTLE GIRL and you took my innocence and spat upon it.
i've tried so hard to forget. and i've never come so close to hating someone as i have with you.
i'd still do anything to make you smile.
try to make sense of it. i might as well be silent.