Memory Lane

This is how asshole men make me feel, ready for blood and ready to kill. 

I was walking along, ready to get some food, after a rather chaotic day. Everything was crazy, and I was already in a hell of a mood. I walked quite a bit to calm my nerves. The crazy thing is, I was starting to feel a little better. After snacking on some mangos I told myself it was time to get some real food. I was on my way to do so, when I walk into a shop and there are a guy and a girl. The guy is real good looking and the girl is as mousy as hell.

This is how the exchange went.

Guy: Hey good looking, do you want to go to the movies, maybe see Hunger Games and then get some drinks with us?

Me: Me?

Guy: Yeah good looking.

Me: What does your girlfriend right there have to say about this?

Guy: Oh her? She doesn’t matter. She’s fine with it.

Me: Why don’t I ask her?

Girl: Me, I’m not fine with it. I didn’t say anything.

Me: You are a real asshole. And I hope she wises up and dumps you. Go get fucked. Stay the fuck away from me. The next time I see you I hope to stab you.

If stabbing you meant getting a glamorized mug shot, this would be it. 

I walked away and as I did I could hear his mousy girlfriend get her voice and start yelling at him. The whole thing was just an ugly flashback to my time with my ex fiancé. I remember one time I was out with him and his friends and a girl arrived. Later I found out that this girl, who actually turned out to be quite nice, had slept with my ex back in the day. My ex, seeing that his former flame got implants, told me to ask who her surgeon was because I could “benefit.”

Later I found out this SOB was sleeping with an old girlfriend who gave him money. In between that, I found out he was messaging other women online, remarking on their photos and suggesting they get together because I was “boring.” At the end of my rope, I remember my ex was dating a stripper before me. He sought her out for a romantic weekend. She rebuffed him and said, “It would be disrespectful to April. No.”

So when I see crap like that I view it as more than disrespectful, I view it as fucking vile. I view it as someone who needs his ass beat. I know that it feels like a knife has been put to this girl’s heart and she is kicked around. I know how it feels to have the self-esteem of a doormat.

I know how it feels to be on the other side. I know how it feels to be with an asshole who gets his jollies off of making you feel less than, feeling he asserting his masculinity. After all, I almost married mine. This is why I feel my activism and work with young women is so important. It makes these ladies feel that they are worthwhile, letting them know that anyone who treats them like junk has no place in their lives.

On the other hand, I know that this girl has to grow a pair and let this guy go. However, I won’t lie. It was hard not to stab him with the sharpest object. It was hard not to kill him in broad day light. It was hard not to rid the world of scum that it would be better without.

I look innocent, ready to use and abuse in the eyes of some. Do not be fooled, the bottom of this rose is a metal shank, ready to pierce your jugular. 

There are people who will call me angry. They will call me a bitter man-hater because I see something wrong with this exchange. They will make me and any decent woman apologize for the fact that we don’t come with a Laura Croft leather suit, a pole, and Lucite shoes. But I have to speak up. I have to speak out. I have to be a voice for women, because such a voice doesn’t exist.

Instead of murdering a man, which hell this one deserves to have something bad happen to him, I will take a bath. Ted Hughes was responsible for the end of Sylvia Plath. His dicking around made her kill herself. He got cancer and angry lesbians scraping Hughes off of her tombstone that read Sylvia Plath Hughes. Sylvia also go acclaim. We know the Colossus, we know the Bell Jar. We know nothing that he has done.

Maybe I am so angry not because I know how much it hurts. I also know how damaged you are when you leave that relationship. I also know my mother can’t bring his name up because I just get angry. We both get angry. I also know it is hard as hell to trust again, and once you are damaged you are always sort of damaged.

On the flipside I also know guys like that don’t speak for all men. My father is very good to my mom, and my brother would never dream of treating his wife that way ever. Same with my uncles. My fan boys, if they knew where to find this guy would beat the shit out of him themselves.

The difference is now I don’t act mousy and go off on someone afterward. I don’t submit to bullshit. I am not a victim. I take my hits in the boxing ring, standing like a man. Sure, it makes me scary in the eyes of some men. But those men are cowards. Real men aren’t afraid of a road warrior.

Love

April

I am an angry woman, ready to strike and ready to fight. I am ready to give a voice to women who suffer.