Michelle
Connie’s classic straight black hair spills down her chest, framing her body like a set jewel. She looks even more precious dead-drunk than alive, yet she snores like a gasping fish.
Another evening of up and down delirium. Depression in a bottle is laughing at her from an empty jug of Taylor’s red wine sitting within her reach on the floor.
Connie called her excesses “character”.
Well-educated. Wealthy family. Determined to live burning both ends of the candle, Connie has a lot of character.
She smiles in her sleep. Curled like a child on the wire cot, the dirty gold flannel blanket pushes back from her waist. She's naked, like always, in deep sleep. Her pillow is gray with use. Around her the cinder block walls of the race track dorm, is a prison cell, one she chooses to live in.
So lovely to look at. My Connie, muscled and tanned, she is an athletic Asian-white blend. A marvelous BIPOC girl, raw and clean. Her mixed-race genes offer the best to her packaging.
She and I should sprawl across silk sheets in a four post bed with open French doors inviting a warm breeze. We could breathe the fragrance of roses and champagne. We could make endless love. We could travel and see the world. We could hold hands, without shame. We could get married. No one would scorn us now...
Her scars from past wrist slits are tribal bracelets. The white slashes on her thighs, mark days of drunken memories. Proud and pinched, her mutilations are decorations for a horse girl living alone and around.
I want to lie beside her, but I know I can’t. I shouldn’t. She will wake and say something harsh to me. Tease me, mock me. She knows I love her and yet she hurts me.
Instead I kneel beside her on the cement floor right next to her wrinkled riding boots. The smell of horse and sand are her marks--her boots, jeans, tees and underwear all stink of horses.
I know Connie, my love. It will be okay
Tonight her breath reeks of rotted grapes.
So many times I told her to clean up her act. To get back with real life, to get help, and forget the horses. To end the gypsy life traveling to Florida and New York. To stop going where ever the men and the money asked her to go...
We had many fights-- her shouting and crying, me threatening to leave her for good. Yet we were together for years-- on and off- me always coming back to her with money, gifts, and bottles of wine.
I don’t know how to quit her. Connie is my obsession. I hate her for letting me down every time I hoped she would be mine. Why can’t she understand I would take care of her and keep her safe?
So many times I raged over her permissiveness. I hated her willingness to give herself to any man that looked twice at her and had money.
Was she a whore? No. But I am not stupid. I know she's damaged goods. That’s why I excuse her every time she phones. Every time she cries about another guy taking her, beating her up, and taking her things.
Ah Connie. I can only put up with so much from you.
This time though I can’t see straight.
I want to wring the life from you.
I want to watch you choke and plead to me.
I want you to want me.
I want you to need me.
I want you to change.
I hear your laughter.
I don’t know if you are laughing at me or with me.