what was i thinking?!

tonight is hockey night. for my husband anyway. for me, it's a night that i get to do whatever i want...ok, maybe not whatever i want, but a girl can dream can't she?

tonight i was reading and i found something i wrote. it's dated 8/22/95. so apparently this is what was on my mind ten years ago...


Box of Rain

the little notes you would pass me at work. the letters you wrote from school, with the pictures of the president when he came to visit your college. all of our movie stubs, and even the stevens motel receipt from the first time i came to visit you. you didn't want your roommates to know your girlfriend was in high school. so i let you hide me away in a tiny room with two double beds. the bus ticket from the second trip. the one i spent a whole paycheck on and skipped a day of class, just to see you. you let them see me this time, i was in college.

so many pictures...from the first summer we spent together, when i won the swimming trophy. we were late that night to dinner, and the next year we were late again. your parents were away and we took advantage of the empty house. the one my mom took in front of the mirror in my living room. you know the one, we were going out to dinner that night after work and i didn't wear underwear because my dress was too tight. after dinner you slipped my dress up and we screwed in the driver's seat of your little sports car next to that cornfield.

all of it is tucked away in that blue shoebox under my bed. you remember, you went with me to buy those shoes, the white canvas ones with the blue strip around the bottom. i had wanted those shoes for a whole month before i finally bought them. remember? memories that i can spread out on the floor and go through as if they had just happened. i can still hear your voice, so critical, telling me all the things that i could never do right. i can smell your hair and feel it, thick between my fingers. sometimes i can still taste you in my mouth after you came. i spit it down the side of your car the first time and you made me get a rag from the trunk and clean it off. you were always coming. on my stomach, in my mouth, inside of me, sometimes you even came while we were on the phone together. afterwards i would tell you how much i loved you, you never saw the tears.

do you remember when we broke up? the first day of winter quarter my freshman year, your senior year. i told you i didn't want you to come visit me because i didn't want to be your girlfriend anymore. you came anyway. we stayed in a motel that night too, and i wouldn't let you see me naked. you didn't understand, so you fucked me for spite. two months later you sent a valentine's day card, just because.

it's in the box with the others.


ok, that was sufficiently depressing! gee, do you think i had some rage?! consequently, that box has been ceremoniously burned...a drunken night of ritualistic female bonding; while we roasted marshmallows, smoked too many cigarettes, and forgave all the bastards that did us wrong.

this was the last thing i ever sent to this boy. the horrible thing is that i have let go of the rage...forgiven him, forgiven me. and i don't get to take it back. so...if you read this one day, you know who you are, i'm sorry.