I was with you
Johannes Raab
I was with you through the undergraduate years at Iowa.
I was with you when you were beautiful, had perky breasts, a fit body, a lovely rear end.
I was with you when you beat me one night in Iowa City. I stayed with you.
I was with you, working and paying our way as you went through graduate school.
I was with you. We were married.
I was with you, abandoning my own career to come with you when your graduate school work required living in India for a year.
I was with you through more beatings. You seemed to just lose your temper and go off the rails. (You have grudgingly admitted to one of those.
I was with you, still, after those beatings, all those nights exiled to the couch over some trumped-up disagreement.
I was with you, living in Bombay/Mumbai for your career.
I was with you through my own graduate school years.
I was with you,
for better or worse.
I was with you when you started to refuse intimacy. When you squirmed away from me one day when I kissed you. When you cut off all sexual contact. When you wouldn't let me put my arm around you as we watched a movie.
I held out hope. Stupidly.
I was with you when the physical abuse transitioned into psychological abuse — when I tried to bring up your violence against me and you responded by mocking me for complaining about “getting beaten up by a little girl.”
You literally laughed in my face.
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I was with you as your boobs sagged.
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I was with you as you grew a paunch. I was with you when your rear ballooned and partitioned your upper legs to swell with it; you'd started to morph into the template that you aunts' bodies had forewarned. I didn’t care. I was with you because I loved you.
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I was with you as you slammed plates and pots and pans down on tables and floors when I didn't do what you wanted.
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I was with you when we finally landed here and things finally seemed stable enough to do so.
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I was with you, watching the long, slow-motion train wreck our life together was becoming, horrified as nothing I did seemed to even slow the collapse.
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I was with you, watching, helpless to veer you off that course you were forcing us onto.
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I was with you, watching as, once we had left any pursuit of my own career behind, we relocated to Central Pennsylvania for yours. I had my moments. I was an interim director for Multicultural Student Services. I was an assistant professor, teaching part-time, technically, though the workload was far more than full-time.
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I was with you through more than 10 years of relentless, obnoxious, demanding bitching that we have a child, even though we were in no financial shape to do so responsibly.
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I was with you through all of this. You repaid me by kicking when I was down, when I needed the person who was supposed to be my closest friend and most trusted ally. You literally laughed when you did.
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As I attempted to come home, you laughed, got a terrifying smile on your face, and told me, “Don’t get too comfortable.” I just wanted to come home. To heal.
You could not bring yourself to allow me that much.
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I was with you all the way, when something within you broke, and you — puzzlingly — decided that I was your Alan (your mother's abusive boyfriend). I’d never raised a finger against you, never abused you physically or psychologically. Quite the opposite. I was always loving and nurturing toward you and your pains.
I was with you.
:: Johannes Raab writes, edits, and publishes in Central Pennsylvania. He is the proud father of a little boy.
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