5.11.2005

Open Letter To You Who Should Have Known Better

Every once in a while (less frequently than before, but more than I wish), I have a day like yesterday. Unexplained explosions of emotion -- a trembling anger that slowly subsides to a dark sadness. A private anguish too painful to explain, too existentially dreadful not to ponder.

I have few secrets -- he has one. You.

I refuse to allow the obvious reasons to excuse the past -- specifically: fractured family structure, ignorance of youth, corporal weakness. Everyone has a cross to bear -- even 7 year olds. I grew up in the same town, saw the same wasteland of options for life. I smelled the same toil of burning mills producing nothing but toxic fumes, felt the same weight of puritanical New England homogeneity. I grew up under an impenetrable cloud of despair. But, I never resorted to the horrible, degrading actions that you incited on an innocent.

Fast forward to the present. It is a burden he can't shake, a sadness he can't abate. He has surpassed that perverse moment, but he will never fully recover. He will never be completely free. And, it's your fault.
You were a horrible girl. You are a horrible woman -- you've damaged the soul of someone I love and I will always hate you for it. That is a cross I willingly bear.