You Must Have Forgotten

Sometimes as the day begins to wind down I find myself feeling anxious. I realize I am clenching my jaw and it’s almost like my skeleton wants to climb out of my skin. I can’t immediately figure out what’s wrong with me. I’m uncomfortable. Am I forgetting something? Am I late?

No, nothing like that. The anxiety isn’t current and it doesn’t belong to this version of myself. My body becomes tense because it spent so many years bracing for the impact.

The body remembers.

You must have forgotten.

I lay down in my bed now after years sleeping on a couch. The day is through. I am safe and sound at home but I am restless and unsettled. It’s hard to quiet my apprehension around sleeping.

How many times was I catapulted awake with a start, terrified by the sounds of screaming and slamming doors, the constant mayhem of dysfunction boiling over?

You must have forgotten.

On my hip there is a little ball of scar tissue. It came from landing on a very solid wood table during a physical altercation. My body was flung across the room like a ragdoll. Ten+ years later I occasionally touch my side when I remember that it’s there.

I remember why you tossed me. I remember why I deserved it.

You must have forgotten.

I lay on the floor, crying, clearly in pain. There was no shift as you walked away from me. No recognition of damage or display of empathy at all. There never ever was.

You must have forgotten.

I flood with the memories of circular conversations just trying to be heard. I remember giving up on one thing after another until there was nothing left to hope for.

You must have forgotten.

A voice whispers to me throughout the day. It repeats the things I’ve heard from you as though they are the undisputed truth of who I am. As though the things I was told I was have any business defining me.

I believed them then. Sometimes I still believe them now.

You must have forgotten.

Insecure. Inconsiderate. Lazy. Overly Emotional. Illogical. Incapable of keeping friendships. Too soft a mother. Too hard a friend. Unreasonable. Crazy. Psycho.

And “no one has the guts to tell you their true feelings about you because you hold them hostage.”

And “no one else sees the real you like I do. How could they?”

I remember.

you must have forgotten.