An Open Letter to my Abuser

Dear Adrian*,

I don’t wish you a life of solitude. I don’t wish you a life of torture. I don’t wish you eternal damnation.

What I wish cast upon you is a life of remorse.

I wake up every day remembering what you did to me. Every time someone looks at me the wrong way I see you in that person’s eyes. Every time someone gets close to me I put up a block. I am my own protector. Me and only me.

Every day I walk the Earth knowing the risks involved with ordinary people. I’m picky. I’m careful. I’m cautious. I’m defensive.

I’m angry. I’m cold. I’m anxious. I’m cynical.

I’m also kind. I’m caring. Unjudging to deliver compassion but prejudice when it comes to receiving such. The illusion of selfless though not by intent.

My mind twitches with an undisclosed number of different thoughts and ideas. They dance with insignificance and intertwine with intricacy before pouring out of my lips and fingertips as tangible evidence of an artist at work.

I rely on myself. I protect myself. My humor is dark. My standards are extraordinary.
I’m kind. I’m resourceful. I’m able. I’m creative.

I am productive. I make things happen for my own localized good.
This is all a result of those terrible things you did.

If I believed in Hell I know you’d go there, but since no person is inexplicably evil enough to be damned with infinite punishment, I instead cast upon you a life of sorrow.

When you wake each morning, you will think about what you did to me. You will cringe at the memories and weep internally. When you are alone, you will re-live your actions with anger and guilt.

You will feel no pity. These things are in the past and you cannot change them.

When your guilt becomes too much to contain, it will pour out through your lips and fingertips as intangible power for productivity and the localized good.

You will be helpful. You will be kind. You will be resourceful and good. You will do these things in rebellion against the person you were when you chose to hurt me.

You will eventually wake each morning with a spring in your step and a light in your heart, but you will never forget what you did to me. You will cringe at the memories and weep internally. When you are alone, you will re-live your actions with anger and guilt.

I live a life of anxiety and anger because of the things you did and yet I no longer hesitate to let my anger contort itself into productivity, empathy, and creation.  

I cast upon you, Adrian, a life of guilt and remorse that will haunt and plague you with an uncontainable negativity so that your only fate will be to spend an eternity building an inverse of that for the common good.

Life, the Universe, and the Pursuit of Happiness, 

Phoenix

 

*not his real name