TRIGGER WARNING: ABUSE, EXTREME VIOLENCE, DRUG USE, PROFANITY, SEXUAL REFERENCES.
Dear Ade
You were like a drug to me. I would find myself wanting to be with you at all times, even in the moments where I absolutely hated you (and they were a lot). You constantly hurt me. You constantly stole from me, in so many ways. I hated you for that. I loved you because of everything else; I loved you for the massages you’d give me after every beating, I loved you for the ways you said “I’m sorry” as you lay tender kisses down my back, I loved you for the breakfasts and dinners, I loved you for the gifts, oh and I loved you for the smiles that were reserved only for me, I especially loved the moments you never hit me.
You were everything to me. You were horrible for me and yet, I kept coming back to you. You always told me “Come my Ayo, you should know better than to come back here” each time I showed up at your doorstep with my bag in hand-the bag you got me. Each time you beat me felt like a punishment for coming back to you. You’d always ask me “Why did you come back?”
I would come back because I was scared for you. I loved you too much to let you stay alone, I knew what you were capable of doing. I knew the pain you were capable of inflicting. I knew you were not strong enough to bear that pain, but I was. I knew you could hurt yourself the same way you hurt me (if not worse) and I would have let you hurt me a million times if it meant you would never ever hurt yourself ever again.
I used to ask myself why I wanted you more every time you made me cry. I think maybe there was a part of me- a very broken part- that needed the pain you caused. It was how I knew you loved me, because you would hit me. The thing is Ade, you stole all my joy from me, and every time I came back, I was hoping that that would be the day you gave it back.
I know that every time you threw me against the wall and screamed “I fucking hate you, you selfish fuck!” you were talking to yourself. I hated being your mirror, I hated being your punching bag. However, in some way I loved that I was that person for you. I loved that I was who you took your anger out on, I loved that I always got the brunt force of it, the raw deal. I loved that you shared your darkest moments with me, because I knew you didn’t share them with anyone else. Not even Lesedi, the boy who had loved you from when you were kids.
Our entire relationship I had always been focused on proving myself to you, being desirable for you. It’s like you were unattainable Ade, like you were the bus that I was always late to, even when I tried my best to wake up early.
Sometimes on the days when I really hated myself, the days when I would sit in a cubicle with frozen peas on my nose at school or the days when I would look in the mirror and see all the bruises you left behind, I would wonder why I was still with you. What was it about you that made me want to stay, what is it that made me come back so many times?
I should have known it would end badly when I felt the butterflies. There were so many red flags; it was the stalkers, the numerous exes, the bottled emotions, the walls you had up.. all red flags that I chose to ignore.
The first time you hit me I remember feeling absolutely stunned. My ears rang, and my eyes teared up almost immediately. I can’t say I was surprised, you’d gotten physical before, but I would have never suspected that you could beat me. The first time you hit me was also the first time I left you.
You begged me to come back remember? You showed up at my mother’s house in tears, telling me that you were sorry, it would never happen again. You told me you loved me and I stupidly believed you. Two weeks later you beat me with a belt, left marks everywhere on my body except for my face.
“Never the face my love, people still have to look at you….”
On one of your worst days; you woke me up with a bucket of ice. I remember screaming “Ade what the fuck!” I was shocked that you would do that; the night before we’d gone out for drinks, you’d made me a candlelit dinner and we had made love multiple times. You slapped me (because you hated when I swore) and then dragged me from the bed by my hair. I noticed the trail of blood following us to the bathroom, immediate panic. I tried to tell you I was pregnant and you didn’t listen.
You threw me against the bathroom wall and told me “Stay there bitch or I’ll fucking kill you!”. You ran a bath for me. I remember shivering. I was still naked from the night before and the bathroom floor was so fucking cold. The water was steaming and you told me to get in. It burnt. It burnt and scalded my skin, and I tried to tell you as much but you didn’t listen. You made me lie down in that scalding hot water. I was sat in that tub, silent tears running down my face because you’d said you hated loud crying.
You started to tell me a story, of a pregnancy test you had found in the trash, and I began wailing. I begged you, told you that I had made a mistake, I’d missed a pill, and that I had been planning to tell you about the pregnancy. You told me to shut up again. You began to explain how you had slipped an abortion pill into my food-one two days before and one the previous night. I choked up, I couldn’t believe that you would be capable of that.
The water was rapidly changing colour. Reality sank in that I was sitting in the blood of my child- a baby that you had killed. A baby I had wanted, needed even. I quickly climbed out of the bath and grabbed a towel to place between my thighs. I was wailing, sobbing and belligerent. You sniffled, told me that you had made a decision you knew I wasn’t strong enough to make. You walked out of the room and said that I would be bleeding for a few more hours. I kept sobbing, you didn’t try to comfort me.
You sniffled again, you did that a lot when you were high. You left me on the floor and told me that I should get back in the water, “It’ll be less cleaning for you later,” You left me there, squatting over a towel as I bled out my child, and you locked me in the room of my worst nightmares.
Maybe that was my last straw. Maybe that was the last bit of my sanity. I guess now we know.
Love, Ayo
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