“Learn your Place” – not your typical Valentine’s Day story

This is a reblog that I posted back in 2014….

It was Valentine’s Day (sometime in the late 90’s) and since I had recently been dumped I was looking at a depressing evening at home alone.  Weighing my options I decided to go out for a couple drinks instead of staying in and consuming the ice cream consolation prize I had purchased earlier that day.

I wore the brand new, milk chocolate colored silk blouse I had bought to wear on a date that was not to be.  Screw it!  I was only going to the dive bar that was within stumbling distance of my apartment but might as well look nice.

I wasn’t there long when I noticed this big, burly guy who was just being an all-around jerk to his date.  Negative comments and general snarkiness then out of nowhere he backhands her across the face so hard that she flies into the wall.  He snarled “I said get me a beer!”  The thing is she was…she just didn’t move fast enough to suit him.

I looked around in wonder as no one, absolutely no one, made a move to do ANYthing.  I went over there without really thinking and said something really scathing (I’m sure it was, really) like “Get a life, Big Man!”  I don’t really remember what I said in all honesty but he told me I needed to learn my place and she (the woman being abused) told me to mind my own business.  Incredible.

I made my way back to my bar stool and ordered a fresh drink.  The bartender asked what I had said to the guy and said well “if looks could kill” and warned me that he was “boring holes” through my back.  I said “Oh, well… maybe he will leave her alone while he glares at me.”

And…that was that.  Nothing else transpired.

A couple drinks and a couple hours later I decided to go out for some fresh air because the cigarette smoke that permeated the place was burning my eyes.  I walked outside and leaned against the brick wall and closed my eyes. That was all it took… just a couple of seconds with my guard down.  He was there.  I never heard him come out but he was right in front of me. Ripping my shirt open, clawing at my neck, spitting venom in my face, “Bitch, I’ll show you your place” as he tried to push me behind the dumpster, to the pavement littered with broken beer bottles.  It became alarmingly clear exactly what he meant to do.  Exactly how he was going to show me my place. I wouldn’t, couldn’t let that happen.  Never Again.

I struggled to break free but he was too big, he was overpowering me.  I pulled my knife.

The knife I thought I would never use.  My best friend had given me this knife and insisted I learn how to use it…made me practice opening and using it, stabbing cardboard.  I thought it was ridiculous and only went through the motions to humor him.

Now his words echoed through my head, “Only pull it if you are going to use it.”

This guy wasn’t afraid though.  He laughed when I said “Don’t make me” and sneered “Like you are going to use it.”  He lunged at me and in the seconds before his fist met my face I stepped forward to meet him and plunged the entire blade into his stomach and twisted it before pulling it back out.

I’ll never forget the look of disbelief on his face as he reached down and felt the blood gushing through his shirt.  He said “What did you do that for?”

It was then people decided to step in to break things up.  I don’t know when people had come out but suddenly someone was taking my knife from me (which was easy enough as I was just holding it loosely staring at the blood, his blood on my hand.)  People were looking and talking and Douchbag was yelling about calling the cops.

I went inside, holding my shirt closed with one hand, and walked directly behind the bar and grabbed a bottle of vodka to douse my hand.  Then I called a cab and paid my tab and slipped out the back.  The cab got there before the police…

The next few days were agonizing.  I knew I had acted in self-defense but I had left the scene.  I had no idea what had happened after I left.  I also knew that all knife and/or bullet wounds that showed up at the ER had to be reported to the police.  I kept waiting for a knock at the door.

Then one day at work I saw my bartender of all people walking down the hall towards me.  It was surreal; I had never seen him outside of the bar… not to mention in the light of day.  He told me that when I left the guy had come in to use the phone to call the police.  He had told him that it wouldn’t be a problem but needed to do one thing first.  Then he got on the loudspeaker (normally reserved for “Last Call” announcements) and said everyone who saw this guy beating up on his girlfriend and then attacking Melanie please come to this side of the bar.”  The ensuing crowd of witnesses effectively dissuaded the call to police.

So that was that.  My knife had been cleaned and was returned to me.  As far as what happened to Douchbag… he lived.   From what we heard later he got stitched up by a friend who was a doctor.

And I, gentle reader, for a short time, was seen as a bit of a bad ass… and my drinks were free.

•

Melanie Thomason

***Note this was long ago and I no longer go to bars and very, very rarely get in fights. 😉 Though I do still carry a knife just in case I need it.

patchwork girl (haiku)

sins of her father

black swatches and blue ribbons

of mother’s neglect

she’s a patchwork girl

pieces stitched together by

vivid crimson thread

~Melanie Thomason

Reblog in honor of Blue Monday

escape

her family

lacking humanity

embraced their insanity

“loved” with brutality

made home a monstrosity

hell—

or at least in the vicinity

she had to get away

or be lost in their depravity

◊

baptized by poetry

words strengthened her immunity

to escape her biology

to leave them in her history

a change in geography

gave her new opportunity

to make a new reality

and write her own story

◊

~Melanie Thomason

after the fact

i hate you up on your high horse

hate you, not the horse, of course

you talk about how i caused you

so much anxiety

but we both know i had nothing to do

with your insecurities

guess you now believe all the lies

you’ve told yourself

as the inconvenient truth dies

on a dusty shelf

go ahead and enjoy your little victories

but only cause you’ve rewritten HIStory

~Melanie Thomason

2/19/19

 

 

Anniversary Gift

with an excited gleam in his eyes

he hands her a package

silently she opens to find

a fantasy of silk and lace

sea-foam green and barely there

he directs her to undress and put it on

wordlessly she complies

he observes as silk slides across young, pert flesh

he commands her to model it for him

to move with the music

she complies as he watches with hungry eyes

brusquely he pulls it off and tosses it carelessly to the floor

 pushing her roughly to the bed

he can’t be bothered with undressing

he just takes what he wants from behind

when he is done he notices the delicate green silk crumpled under his boot

he tosses it to her and says

“Wash that and re-wrap it before your mom gets home.”

—

~Melanie Thomason

a reblog, this poem is in my 2nd book of poetry.

Moonpies & Naugahyde

which is available in full color, black and white or on Kindle.

the now

We are not time travelers

I’m still waiting on Hawk to build that time machine

though he seems to have flown away from the blogosphere

so for now, we are confined to living in the now

changing the past is impossible

so can we try to start fresh moving forward?

can we leave past relationships behind us?

~Melanie Thomason

 

prove it

in 1985

in Jackson, Mississippi

in a shit brown ’69 Buick

in the driveway of my grandparent’s home

we sat silently

each for our own reasons

 

my mom sat in the front passenger’s seat waiting

clinging to the bouquet of flowers that somehow made it all ok

baby sister sat in the back seat beside me

quiet for once but only cause she didn’t know what was going on

dad sat seething in the driver’s seat

waiting for me to break the silence

to respond to their seemingly simple announcement and a question

They were getting back together

we were moving back home

and all he wanted to know was, “Isn’t that great, Melanie?”

They didn’t expect my shock, my hesitation

They didn’t know my horror or my ultimate resignation

that the brief respite had ended, as i should have know it would

when he repeated his question with that edge in his voice

I quickly mumbled “yeah”

but the damage had been done

“Don’t you love our daddy, girl?”

“Yes sir.”

“I don’t believe you, guess you’re gonna have to prove it.”

~Melanie Thomason

 

every word

every word

every thought

every action

has all been about you

even if only indirectly

or has it?

has it really?

of course some of it has been about Him

and him, and him, and her, and Her

and the damage they’ve done

but the rest of it

every scribble

every line

every rhyme

has all been about YOU

or has it?

has it really?

maybe after all this time

it has all been about me

and I was too blind to see it

~Melanie Thomason

6/1/17