It takes patience to stay.
To watch and listen to what you're not supposed to acknowledge, pushing it toward the background; waiting. For a time that may never come, for an empathy that might not ever develop; for an intellect that may never arrive; for an end or a reason acknowledgment itself that may have never been to being with.
He and she dog me.
She gives me a name (if it's hers, I do not know.) and she says she was six when a man first touched her. She says ever since then she cannot get enough sexual contact, and once she gets her fill of one man she moves on to another and another and another. She likes violent sex and tells me that she has to imagine a knife to her throat to achieve an orgasm. She prefers the knife really there so she doesn't have to imagine.
She waits to say more. I can tell she knows exactly what she wants to say, and I can see in her eyes that she wishes she didn't carry the words, carry the memory of what they mean. Men and women have beaten her. She has been emotionally and sexually abused; she has been ostracized.
She looks at me wondering if I am accepting what she is saying. Not for her words, alone: She wants to know if I accept her. Her actions. Her motivations.
I remain silent as she is telling me that she never could have kids thanks to that freak my ma was with; and do you wanna hear some sick shhtt? My ma knew that he was banging me and she didn't do a ffcckknngg thing. That's some sick medicine to swallow.
I agree and tell her that I do.
You're a pretty ffcckknngg nice guy (do you want --- to ---) I mean, you're not bad looking either, do you wanna? I don't think you're into any of that freaky sick sshhtt (at least you don't look like it) I mean you look as harmful as a howdy ffcckknngg doody (no offense). Or are you into another ball team?
No. I've been with someone for a while.
That is so ffcckknngg predictable! Every ffcckknngg time I come across a nice guy he's already with some bbttcchh (no offense to your woman).
Pause.
Ffcckk - then I gotta excuse myself to get laid. Dddmmn!
She looks at me hard.
You're more freaky than you let on, aren't you? Ddmmnn, I bet you are serious intense.
I stand, ready to leave.
You know, I was only six when that ffcckknngg, aasshhllee, took me, and I never said I liked it but I just loved that ffcckknngg aasshhllee, understand? I mean like a daddy. He was my daddy. What could I do? That doesn't make me bad, does it?
Ffcckk. I am one sick sshhtt, ain't I.