Annis.

The last time I saw you... You were a blonde, blue-eyed baby.

Annis.

I was so sorry to leave you. To leave you with him. I prayed with every bit of my being that he would hold you tight every time you cried, that he would never let any of your needs go unmet. That he would never mistreat you, his perfect baby girl. I prayed that he would never treat you the way he did me.

He lied to me. He promised to let me go if he could keep you. I made a mistake and I knew what it was from the moment I left you with him. I gave you up so that I could go on without him, but I should have known better. I should have known that I couldn't just give up my baby girl. I should have known there was no without him.

He gave me a five-year head-start, then began tracking me like a dog. I don't know how he found me, dearest Annis. I changed my name. I changed my country. I changed my hair and my body. He still knew me from the start.

One day you will know the truth. You will know how he pushed me down in the street and how he pulled me, screaming, off the sidewalk and into the alley. You will know how no one blinked, as if I was not even there. One day you will discover how your daddy crushed my body as he crushed my soul until nothing was left but splinters of bone oozing with warm, sticky blood. My blood. You will know how he left the fragments that had once been my body in a cold and dirty alley in a country that is not your own and was not my own.

You will discover how he led the dogs to feed on me and you will not seek revenge for the loss of the first home you knew in this world, but you will not forgive him.

Annis.

Never forgive him.

The Saddest Story.

I lay on my floor, staring at the ceiling.  The mess that usually occupies most of my floor-space has been cleaned and put away.  All the hangings from my walls are wrapped in newspaper and carefully sorted into boxes.  My sheets are clean.

I try to think of the list I’ve had in my head for weeks; all the things that needed to be done.  I think I’ve finally completed the last item.

The walls seem so white.  White and naked.

I set my iPod to repeat a playlist I made months ago.  All of the songs that make me think of him.  Of the person I had built him up to be in my mind before he let me go.  Of all the things we went through together that should have either made us stronger together or broken us, but really did neither.

Until he left.

I guess maybe our entire relationship was based on one of us leaving the other.  I probably didn’t realize how often that was because I was usually the one leaving.  I just always came back.

He never did.

I fill the bathtub with warm water and bath salts.  The smell of lavender wraps around me and floats out into the apartment.  The only light comes from a candle burning on the counter.  It flickers and dances some pagan ritual.

I slide into the warm water.

I close my eyes.

I disappear.



I can’t do this anymore.  
I’m so alone my bones ache.
I’m so poor my stomach aches.
And I can’t take this kind of stress without him.
I’m so sorry.  I love you all.




He was sound asleep by her side.  I could feel my heart ache for him, though I no longer had a heart.  I sat by his feet and he shivered, then stirred.  I lay down on my side, my face in front of his.  His eyes opened and he sat up rapidly, staring, speechless.

“Hi, Bambi,” I said, sitting up with him.  His eyes opened wider.

“What the-“ he started almost yelling, then looked at her sleeping and tried again.  “What the hell are you doing here?” he whispered.

“Saying goodbye.”

“How the fuck did you get in here?”

“I just thought about you and then I came to you.”

He quickly snapped into understanding.

“What happened?” he asked as tears choked at his words.

“You lied to me, Bambi.  You decided never to come back.”

“I decided not to come back for now…  I have a good thing going here.  I didn’t want to fuck it up.  I have a chance to make some real money.”

“I gave you a chance.  I told you if you denied it, it was for good and there was no coming back.  You ignored me.  I just…  Couldn’t…  You know?”

He stood and walked out of the room.  I followed him without step or sound to the living room.  He sat on the couch.  He was crying.

“You left me, Bambi.  For good.  That was your choice and that’s okay.  This was my choice.  Because I don’t know how to be anything but yours.”

“I don’t want you to be anything else.”

“Then you should have told me that while it still would have mattered.”

He began to sob.  In a way I pitied him.  His tears would never bring me back.

 I sat beside him and wrapped my arms around him, pulling him as close as I could.  He shivered.
“I still love you,” he said quietly.

“Bambi, I will always love you.  And because of that I will always be with you.  Now I will never be with anyone else.”  I kissed his lips, which were wet and salty with tears.

“But you can’t be with me, either.  I never wanted that,” he said to the empty room, not realizing I had already gone.


“I will wait for you here.”  My voice echoed in his mind.

When he came to find me I welcomed him with open arms.