FEET DON’T FAIL ME NOW
Part one – Love in protest.
To you.
I don't have a word to describe you, I wish I could forget such a monster as you are and I wish I didn't have to use such a human pronoun as "you", but I have to due to a lack of language, the same each and everyone of your accomplices have when they lay in omerta.
I still remember when my sweet Agnese came to me, crying about how she couldn't take you anymore, she couldn't stand anymore the hate you had for her. She came to me with black and blue marks around her eyes as if she wasn’t blinded enough by the love she stupidly felt for you.
I saw everything you did to her, she had it written all over her body.
I saw her ruined hair and thought of you laying your hands on her and as she was trying to escape you, I saw you grabbing her hair with such a strength that many were ripped off. Around her neck the signs of your thumbs, her wrists sprained, cuts and more marks everywhere on her body, she couldn’t walk properly…
No mother should ever see her own child abused that way; no mother should ever see bruises on her child’s skin, no one should ever have those violent stigmas on their body.
You asked her to have a psychiatric session and she did. They gave her pills for the depression you caused her. She was numb, every single moment. She was coming undone next to me and I was powerless. I still am.
After all the injuries, the pain, the anguish you brought, my daughter and I had no justice.
“Died because of undernourishment” said the hospital statement.
With hate,
A mother.
Part
two – I love you “too much”.
I’m looking
at you right now, reading these words that mean nothing to you, guess what?
Your “no” means the same to me.
I feel it,
you say “no”, they made you think I’m the bad one.
You can’t
ignore me for ever, they can’t control you for ever. I thought you were better
than this- I thought you were independent. You said you’d love me for ever.
Keep your promises, you need me just as much as you needed me before, you love
me just as much as before. Nothing has
changed. Stop acting insane, be yourself, you’re mine. You belong to me. Keep
reading.
It’s been a
year of madness. Stop it.
Did you get my birthday card?
Did you get the card I sent you for your not-birthday day?
Those were funny. You liked it,
your friend told me. About your friends. Who are them? Why are you reading
other books? You don’t need them. I’ll tell them to stay away, I did the same
with your family, they listened, why don’t you? You always try to make me feel
guilty, I know you do it because you love me. I called the electricity company and the water
company, you don’t need them anymore, I sold your house, we are married, screw
bureaucracy.
I told you
already. You are mine, I will get you no matter what, I know everything you do
when you’re at your house, I know everything you do when you are outside. I
know everything about you. I know what you like, I know what you dislike, I know where you live, where you work, where
your family lives, where your friends live. I know everything about what you
love, me.
Remember the
first time you said you love me? I bet you don’t remember, but don’t worry. I
can make you remember, I recorded you saying it. Your words are written all
over me.
Why don’t you say it again? Say
you love me as the first time. I know you want it.
Do you want
to have some time to think? You don’t want to have time, you are reading this.
I’m your time and you need me.
You can’t
ignore me. I know you read all of the words, you picked me up every time I
fell, you helped me when I didn’t want to be an open book not even for you.
You are not
safe where you live, you’re not safe outside, you are safe with me.
You can never stop reading these words, you
can never stop reading me.
You will never forget this
story. You will never forget me.
Part
three – Love in trial.
“When my
brothers and I were born, we were soon abandoned. We found ourselves in a huge
place, full of others who somehow were similar to me and my brothers. They
glued on us a sticker, they priced us all. We were slaves in there, slaves of
time, slaves of all the hands who picked us up and put as back or stole us or
paid to have us, every day thousands of us were sold to those hands. None knew
how to react, we didn’t even like each other that much. Day after day they caught
my brothers, soon they took me and none fought for us.
I never saw my brothers again.
Those hands
were warm and gentle when they picked me up, at the beginning. After page ten,
they became violent, I was fold and hurt many times, the hands started to
scratch me, at first only on the cover as a punishment for the outcome of the
secret story that I withhold, then on the inside, those hands scratched me
every now and then for the strange words...
At some
point the worst happened: my last page was brutally ripped off and burned in
front of me.
Look at all these spots! All
the hands’ fault! I can’t be read anymore… A word out of five has been erased,
it’s like those hands wanted to erase my whole memory of my treasured story!
Such an
abuse! The same seemed to happen to each and every single hurt book on the
shelves.
I couldn’t take it anymore.
None could understand how ashamed, how hurt I was…”
Then silence, then tears, the
ink started to fall down every page – “I’m fading…”
“Please,
take all the time that you need!” – said the lawyer – “I know it’s difficult
but the more detailed your story is, the more easier it will be to believe
you.”
The book
suddenly shot itself, there was a thud. Then slowly, the pages started to turn
and stopped at page sixty-nine.
The entire courtroom felt into an everlasting time of silence, a silence that
is always going to be heard and remembered.
On many of
the pages there were nasty drawings, every single picture printed on the book
had been made dreadful, nasty, abused, but on that specific page you gave your
worst. Why would you do that?
“No further
questions, your honour.” – concluded the lawyer.
None was emotionally supporting
the poor abused book. How could you had, instead, all those friends and family
there to tell you that it’s going to be OK?
How can your life go on daily,
after assaulting a book, a narrator, a tail?
Listen
carefully to the harsh sound of the hammer price, listen carefully these words,
they might be the last you hear, the last you read for a while and we, books
already too troubled risking extinction, will celebrate every single one of
those words that are going to bring you down.
“Here is
the final verdict. The reader has been judged guilty”
I told you! STAY AWAY!
“Silence in
the courtroom, please! The reader has been judged guilty of rape, stalking,
discrimination, attempt to murder and slavery.” – said the judge – “I condemn
you to write a book while you rot in prison for your whole life and you are forced
to stay away from every word and specifically you cannot make absolutely any contact with this story and stay away
from both at least fifteen thousand books and four hundred stories!”
P.S. The story is just a story. Its aim is not to undermine how terrible abusive relationship are (it's not fucking 50 shades of shit), nor it is an analogy to be polemic about how we treat book - It is really just a fictional story of what it would be like if narrators would take the piss out of their reader -
