Saturday night, the boyfriend and his room mates had a Halloween party. I dressed myself up as a girl scout and Darthnny (the boyfriend) came to pick me up in TUSUVOD. We drove back to his house and proceeded to mingle, talk, meet new people, drink, and have a good time. As the night progressed, I became more and more inebriated, as I am wont to do once about every six months. I was talking to another partygoer about the catharsis of the mosh pit, getting into the conversation with the passion that only 12 ounces of liquor can give a 120 pound girl. We had been comparing dysfunctional rape filled pasts - and how music and mosh pits had been my therapy before therapy - when the boyfriend walked up and started making faces. Standing behind me, I didn't see him. I only saw my listener's face start to contort from trying to hold back the laughter.

There was no thought involved. I stood up and left the house. I was shaking with shame and anger, crying with disappointment in myself. Why was I so trigger happy? I walked to the end of the block and started toward my house, about 2 miles away. I figured someone would be awake to let me in, since I had no keys. Reality struck - at 2 in the morning, I was wearing knee high wool socks and a girl scout uniform. I wouldn't make it home without a problem, that much was clear. I ducked into an alley and sat, sad, staring at the wooden privacy fence in front of me. Pathetic. My complete loss of control was going to cost me another relationship, I just knew it. I wanted to die, I hoped something tragic and disgusting would happen - that the garbage truck would arrive 6 hours early and run me over. I would be a page 2 blurb: Halloween Party Goer Succumbs to Death at Wheels of Garbage Truck - "I saw the green and thought she was yard waste." Slowly I began to realize the utter foolishness of my bolting from the house, and what a jerk I was being for leaving without telling anyone. I got up and punched the fence. Hard. Again. Stupid. I turned and walked back out of the alley, and there was Darthnny in full dark jedi regalia on his room mate's mountain bike. He looked like the grim reaper on holiday. I walked to him and told him I was sorry, and wanted to go back to the house. I was crying and feeling worse and worse. He glided alongside me on the bike back to his house, while I choked and snotted and cried about how awful I was.

Then, through the magic of drunk, the bike was gone. He was trying to comfort me and I just wouldn't have it. I was rehashing the past, trying to cry it out of myself, trying to make him understand, yet not wanting him to see it at all. It was one of the most miserable moments of my life - standing across from this person I love, who makes me *feel*, and knowing somewhere deep in myself, there is such an enormous hate. There is rape, blame, guilt, and a network of lies. Somehow this thing twists even further and I begin addressing Darthnny as "Mr. Logic" when he shoots down my arguments for why I am a monster. I tell him I'm sorry for who I am, this flawed piece of merchandise, this needy, greedy girl who he says is beautiful. I sure don't feel it sometimes.

Things flood together in my memory, I am crying and upset. It is my fault that my cousin has been molested. My father molested me, and my uncle idolized my father. If I had not been born, this sick fuck would never have been introduced into our family. That three year old girl wouldn't wake up screaming in the middle of the night. This makes no sense now, but still I feel guilty, I can sense that my family knows that the real dysfunction started with my birth. Not to say that I caused it, but that the coincidence is enough. I tell my boyfriend that he will not want to be with me forever. He tells me that forever doesn't mean anything, that he loves me right now and that right now is forever. I don't believe him. I cry and wail into the night in this neighborhood. I run up the street, fall and skin my knee. I am trying to get away from him, because in the end he will abandon me. I am running away from what I want the most - to be held and loved and accepted by someone I admire, love, and enjoy.

I run straight into a tree.

I have a lump now on my forehead to remind me for a few days what an ass I was on Saturday night. I have branch scratches across the left side of my face. My right hand is bruised from punching the fence. You can't chop a tree down with your head. Nor can you chop your head down with a tree. I still have to sort out all of these emotions I've unearthed in my drunken state. I was taken home, kissed and hugged, given a bath, and was told that I am loved. So why do I feel so unlovable?