three finger discount
He was missing two fingers
From an accident he’d had as a kid
He ran away from his mom, climbed an electric fence
And lost part of both
The feeling his nails part of the tops
It didn’t make him look so strange
He was awkward looking already
6 foot 3 skinny
When he walked around with no clothes on
He looked like a greyhound
There was something graceless and funny about him
From the way he brought wine and a box set of Family Guy to our first date
To the way he left his first answering machine message in a fake
Scottish accent
I asked if I could call him my boyfriend
He said he didn’t mind
You can call me Suzie if you want, he said
I laughed
When I needed glue for an art project he stole some from the art store
he was working in
Three finger discount, he said
As if saying it made the truth less awful
It’s a working class principle I think, survival of life
Be the first to call yourself on terrible things that are true about you
And everyone laughs and shrugs their shoulders
I never knew he’d turn out to be so controlling
He called his stubbornness being proud
But that didn’t change anything
We fought so many times
He cried when I was sick
But wouldn’t tell me that he loved me
He always called me every second day, not every day
With no explanation
He had secrets that he told me he would take with him to his grave
Secrets from his childhood
He wouldn’t tell me more than that
But he told me things I didn’t want to know
About the drugs he did as a teenager
The neighbourhood he grew up in
The first time he had sex at 14
The time he had sex in a cemetery as a gothy teenager
The way the light made it look romantic
But nothing I ever told him about any guy ever made him jealous
Nothing I did ever made him want me enough
When he broke up with me
I was dazed and sad and confused and more hurt than I’d ever been
I tried to hurt him in any way I could
I didn’t understand how he could just cut me off
Out of his life like a limb he no longer needed
It took me so long to forgive myself.
( if you’re reading this, somehow, I just want you to know that I’m sorry)
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