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Catharsis (Madison Elizabeth Holland - Lafayette, LA)


it started as a sweet dance, a romance, you kissed me and called me "your girl"


it felt like i was being rescued from a marriage that had broken me

you fiercely defended me when others were rude or encroached on what you considered your territory

and i thought it sweet, chivalric,

at least for a little while.


our love was desperation, late nights, too much Jameson,

aggression, possession, violent fights

without passion we are nothing, i reasoned to myself

how can you love someone if you do not also hate them, 

oh the lies i fed myself.



the accusations followed shortly on the heels of my vulnerability

you can't be truthful about liking boys AND girls and expect your partner to not hold it against you

she isn't a SAINT, Madison, she has TRAUMA, you have to be UNDERSTANDING

love her through it, MADISON, she has ANXIETY

and that's why she calls you a cheating whore at the top of her lungs at 4 am each morning

- you just have to learn PATIENCE

and when to put yourself back into the closet.




i walk home every day, two miles, through a rough part of town, so she can use my vehicle

i run up my credit cards so she can have whatever she wants whenever she wants it

i cook and clean and mow and sometimes take a break to cry on the kitchen floor

as long as i cry when she's gone its not manipulation, just my sadness expressed,

my heart, cracking open and spilling out in those few safe moments alone

she will fill me back up when she gets home if she had a good day

if not, i will do it myself

i MUST remember 

independence is empowering!



being alone is hard. stifling. but its better than inflicting myself and my problems on others

[they wouldn't understand how deeply i love her and why i stay]

i'm just spoiled, a princess who has too much privilege, who skates by on an unearned resume and nepotism

i contort my mind to understand you and be your everything 

while i put everything that is me away because its all offensive to you

i will make myself small, do anything for you,

isn't this what love is?



usually if i got overwhelmed or couldn't handle the screaming anymore

i would go take a shower, the bathroom becoming a safe space for as long as i could plausibly stay

i was eating a sandwich and cuddling my Jasper when you started screaming

you dumped a glass of wine on my food and threw the glass at us, shattering against the wall beside my head

i locked myself in the bathroom, got in the shower

and you followed me, forcing your way in

your misplaced fury so violent that i was crouching naked, under the water, scared to death

ripping down the shower curtain and with it my safety

i sat, tears and water mingling, my destruction leaking from my face

sobbing, or as you would call it: "manipulation".

we were having a good day! we actually started having sex for the first time in awhile

[it's hard for me to have sex with someone if we weren't okay, and we were usually not okay]

she was inside me and things were progressing when she stopped, taking her fingers out as quickly as she could

her face was one of disgust and horror as she screamed. i had to be cheating on her.

i felt "loose", i had to be taking dick from somewhere

is there a word for something that feels like rape but isn't?

i was broken in a new way i did not know was possible.

for the first time i could not justify her actions, no matter how many mental backflips i did.



towards the end, when i was very tired, we went to Denver together

it was a lovely and wonderful trip, honestly

i boarded the plane hopeful, perhaps this vacation had changed things for us, that when we got back to Louisiana we would be better

15 minutes before we touched down, you leaned in close 

your cold words slithered into my ear

"you'd like to think things are better, i can tell, but they aren't. you're not gonna keep talking to your guy friends when we get back home, you're going to get yourself in line and stop being such a whore."

my heart dropped to my shoes and the panic returned immediately,

home again, but definitely not home.




the day we broke up for good, you started a fight with me [normal] 

over the fridge i bought for the house i just purchased

because i didn't consult you beforehand or ask your opinion

i laughed - perhaps being callous, i wasn't capable of much else by that point - and your face fell into an angry scowl

the week i chose empowerment was of course when you would start such a silly fight

and i just knew in that moment that the fridge would be what did us in

"how can you stop loving me over a fridge?" you asked, and i laughed some more,

not because it was funny but because when it came down to it, i didn't need a big reason to leave you

you had already given me so many reasons over those two years

and things finally and gleefully came to a end over - YES -

a fridge. 

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