a letter of apology

dear v

i've been meaning to write this letter for the longest time, only i've been too afraid because i know i have much to atone for. this is a letter of apology for all of the times i could have done right by you and didn't.

i think we started off on the wrong foot. the first time i met you was when that guy pointed you out to me and being so young, i had no idea who you were. i didn't know he wasn't supposed to touch you. i just did what i was told. it wasn't until afterwards when i told my brother the guy had put his hands on you that i realized i should have done a better job of protecting you. that experience left me feeling as if perhaps i shouldn't associate with you at all. you became dirty to me and i did everything i could to put thoughts of you out of my mind. i figured if i stopped thinking about you, you'd just disappear, but that was impossible. i mean, i had to use the bathroom so i was wiping you dry at least three times a day.

the next time i became aware of your presence, i was in a rather awkward position, remember? i had just finished perusing through some of my uncle's magazines when all of a sudden you came at me with demands i was ill-equipt to handle. i wasn't sure what you expected of me and ultimately became frustrated as you became more and more insistent. finally i took matters into my own hands, clumsily attempting to quiet you as i sat sprawled out on the bathroom floor of my grandmother's apartment. i didn't even know if my efforts would amount to anything but luckily, whatever it was i did seemed to calm you, even if was only a momentary reprieve. from that point on, our relationship changed. where once upon a time i was numbed to your existence, i suddenly couldn't move without being made aware of you.

my teenage years were littered with furtive minutes of fingers feverishly fondling the patched peach fuzz on your face, my attempts at getting a grip on your urges ultimately leaving both of us dissatisfied. my friends told me i couldn't handle you on my own, that i needed someone else to assist me in assuaging you. meanwhile, i still had bad memories of that guy and his hands and how he assaulted you and i just couldn't do it. little did i know i would again be unable to protect your interests.

in my defense, all i can say is i had no idea fred would behave as he did. i really thought he was a decent cat. looking back, i see the signs that should have clued me into his true nature, but i was only nineteen at the time and up until then had been relatively sheltered from the ills of the world. when i first met him, he had such a beautiful smile and i remember thinking to myself nobody with such a beautiful smile could be a bad person. that night he abused you, i never saw it coming. one minute we were watching television, the next minute we were arguing and he was tearing into you, bashing your face in with his 'night club' until all that was left was a landscape of raped innocence. i remember how you wept blood that night, your tears smeared all over his bedsheets, your lips swollen and cracked from the lashes of his brutal strokes. i touched you with my eyes closed, afraid i wouldn't recognize the feel of you. i cried for the loss of your pristine visage and then closed my legs, hoping to compress the distressing disfigurement into something whole again...only you weren't coal i could squeeze into a diamond 'tween my thighs.

over the succeeding years you were an open wound i carelessly bandaged with inadequate strips of casual copulation, unaware i would never find a salve of absolution within that kind of intimacy. you were there through it all...the crabs that that clung to your hair like lice, forcing me to shave you down to the skin...the foreign phalli choking you with their reckless invasions before belatedly retreating, the remains of their skeeted seed staining your terrain with shame...

you were always there, even when i wasn't. during those episodes, i could erase myself until you were all that was left, all they could see. i forced you to engage in scene with barely familiar partners, ad-libbing a bogus depiction of passion while they flubbed their lines of token pokes. i made you converse in faux contractions even when their actions left you bereft of satisfaction.

i'm not even sure when i stopped that kind of behavior. i guess it just became easier for me to go back to the tried and true method of handling your needs on my own. by this time i was older, so i was educated about various toys i could use to help you get what you wanted without all the bothersome stuff that came with actual physical intimacy. i thought you'd be fine with that considering all of the things that had happened before, but it's obvious you are no longer tolerant of this limited form of coupling. sometimes i hate writing about what i yearn for because i know you're just sitting there waiting for me to acknowledge what you've known all along...

our happiness is intertwined.

there, i admit it. i can no longer pretend you are not a porthole to my soul. i can no longer deny that when i allow for indifferent invasion of your domain i am also allowing for that same army to conquer my spirit. there really is no such thing as casual sex where i'm concerned. those past seminal experiences have heightened the importance of intimacy for me. i can joke about previous encounters and re-live those moments where i danced between laughter and tears with my bedmates, but i know i can no longer separate the act from the reaction. i can no longer just let a man thrust himself within me and trust i'll be aiight with no afterglow.

i deserve that afterglow. both of us do. i will settle for nothing less.

i will cherish you because i know in doing so, i also cherish myself. i ask that you be patient during this time because it means i'll have to continue the solo act of addressing your needs. i can't even promise you it'll be worth the wait because i'm still human, still learning how to trust, still discovering what it is i truly want. however, what i DO promise is that i will never again willingly allow anyone to disrespect you.

thank you for sticking with me through the highs and lows. i love you like a petulant sister.

nikki

p.s. my patience wants me to let you know she's wearing thin. evidently you've become insatiable as of late. i told her you just doing you, but the chick just won't let up. i think she still blames me for her dwarf-like stature. damn...sounds like another letter is in order, huh?