Run

Without him, I didn't know what do do with my hands anymore. They seemed to forget how to do mundane things. How to write, how to brush my hair how to pick myself up off the ground. They were there at the ends of my arms just as lost as the rest of me. I didn't have anyone anymore. Not even The Rolling Stones or the ever faithful Patsy. He silenced them. I know now, I know why he took his record player. He was never tired of them, he loved them because they were part of me. He wanted me to see how quiet they got when I needed them most. He knew I would turn to them like I always had before. What was I when they weren't telling me how to live? Was I the girl with dirty hair and nothing to live for? Was I going to reopen old wounds because I knew it would work this time? When I was young I had a survival instinct. My mother's strange small voice telling me to run. Not Kevin's voice, not a voice I heard on my records, my mother's voice. She had me when she was fifteen, my father was her teacher. She quit school and the teacher never knew about me. The man that took my mother and me in was a mechanic. He owned his shop. That was the man that my mother kept me away from. I was never his daughter. I was never anyone's daughter. Mother taught me how to run and let me go. Sometimes I wasn't fast enough, and I would take the punishment and listen to my her beg him to let me go. Where did her voice go? Why could I not hear her screaming for me to get out, waking me up to warn me before he got home? I could feel her now, hands on my shoulders shaking me. Are you going to lay here and take this? Are you going to surrender to the ugly things around you? You are beautiful and cursed. Out run it Ivy! Never stop! Run and don't stop until you find a safe place to sleep. Her voice was in my head now, shaking me awake. I let her down. I stopped running. The night Kevin found me, I had given up. I stood still enough for the curse to catch me. But he was there. Kevin was always there. I never told him thank you for saving my life because I was scared of what that meant. I had worked so hard to keep the ugly away from him; to keep him seperated from my curse. My mother did it for me. She took herself out of the picture so I could find my safe place to sleep. I was wrong about myself. Kevin didn't ask questions, Kevin loved me inspite of the scars from old cigarette burns on my inner thighs, he loved me because my body belonged to him only,because I knew about books and art, because he didn't believe in curses. He left because I hated what he loved. I was wide awake now. My hands touched the floor and lifted me up. My mother was telling me to hold on, the wounds would heal, I would just have to be faster next time. I took a shower for the first time in weeks, pulled a brush through my tangled hair, and made myself eat. I had found my safe place to sleep, but you were wrong mother, you never stop. My hands were tingling with new energy.

I scribbled down a poem on the door before I left, the first one since he had gone.

Grow little Ivy
take over the garden
wrap your self around the strongest tree
it keeps you safe
Caution!
never wrap yourself too tight
Remember!
the tree is no stronger than you