a promise:

1. When hurt knocks on my door and invites itself in and makes itself at home in my house, my mouth opens as automatic as a machine gun and fires: it is herfault! If shehad not abandoned me like old and outgrown slippers, if she had not made my heart bruised and aching, if she had not said those godawful things, she, she, she! I spew blame like bullets to keep her at bay, to keep myself at bay, to keep everyone at bay. Like a wounded animal, I howl with ache and hurt, a help me! so distorted and mangled it is unrecognizable. I chase every living thing away. (But that isn’t what happened. Stop lying.)
2. Martyred and undeserving, this is how Icome into the narrative. If shecut me to ribbons, then I deserve none of it, poor but perfect but pitiful victim that I am. I am content in my victimhood, relaxing into it like an old coat, luxuriating in its plush leather feel. I soak and stew in my sorry state as though martyrdom is the most fragrant of bath salts and herbs. I do not deserve this, I did everything for you and you did not notice, I bent my spine out of shape and minced and carved and rearranged my own heart into the most exquisite dish to serve you, to please you, to guilt you. It is not my fault you did not notice. (But you’re making this up. Stop trying to get attention.)
3. I want to punish you because you hurt meand I did not deserve it. I want you to hurt as I hurt. With my own hand, I want to right the cosmic weighing scale because I am “Victim” and you are “Perpetrator”. I want to eke out the difference between you and me, powerful and powerless, she-who-hurts and I-who-am-hurt in blood, in distress, in tears. I am bitter-happy and bitter-sated and bitter-satisfied on my rampage, I make a feast of bitterness, and I can ignore the small voice whispering: (But she didn’t do anything. It is all yourfault.)
4. But this is the secret that I have been hiding: like a teen who parties till the crack of dawn because she is fearful of home, so I have been rampaging and raging because I flinch from the voice within. If I stop for even a moment, if I do not fire and spray bullets of blame, if the silence catches up to me, the voice speaks: “You made all these up to feel righteous. She grazed you with a finger and you imagined it into a brutal stabbing. You cannot even get the facts right, you dramatize everything so you can feel good. It is all your fault. How pathetic.”I shake. Tears seep and burn like pain as I agree, “Yes, I am worthless. Yes, I am nothing. Yes, I am a failure.”What do you call hurt by the self? Does violence against the self still count as violence if I deserve it?
5. It is a special kind of wound when it is done by your own hand. I, who should love, protect and cherish myself till death do us part; I, who should to myself, soothe and hush and croon like a mother to her beloved child; I, who should to myself be gentle like the most tender of lovers – Ihave only knife-edges and grenades and heart-wounds to offer. Is it any wonder that my hand knows only to offer war to others?
6. When the fire burns down my house, when the typhoon blows onto land, when every odd is stacked against me, my first safe harbor, my foremost line of defense, is and always will be me. So I tell myself now: I am sorry. I pointed the finger of blame, loaded as a gun, at myself because I thought that I chose this misery, for is that not what victims do – ask for it? I blamed myself for everything and anything, because is that not what someone does when they cannot tolerate the roommate in their souls? I blamed myself to punish myself because is that not what you do when you think you are worth nothing?
7. But I do not want to dance with you in the waltz of blame anymore. Let us both lay down our guns, you and I. I am a war veteran, a war machine, and I am deathly tired. We have been at this for so many years that our wounds and blood seem as natural as the blue sky. It is time for peace, now.
8. Listen, can you hear that? In the silence after the fire, there is the sound of green and growing things. They sound like this: I am a survivor.Even if it feels like a lie, even if I do not quite deserve it, even if I repeat mistake after mistake, I must – I want to – acknowledge my strength, if I am to survive, if I am to be worth anything later, if I am to live.
9. I went into the fire, trembling. I lived in the fire, alone. I came through the fire, alive.
10. When the fire takes my home, when my skin is cracked and excruciating and peeling from the heat and pain, when I am lying in the gutters bleeding and grief-filled and alone, I promise you, I am here. Take my hand. We will start anew.