



I am sitting in a doorway in the cold. I have on shorts, leggings, wet converse high tops, three shirts, a sports Bra week old panties I will surely throw away, and an Adidas jacket.





It has been raining for days. I have been sleeping in parking garages and doorways. I can't escape the rain. My wool blanket sucked the rain off the pavement like a sponge. I woke up to pee because I was shivering in the cold, damp darkness. I am coming down from a week on a speed run. I collapsed here yesterday. Now I have to pee so badly after sleeping nine hours under a wet blanket.





It is after two in the morning. I can tell because the hustlers are out and the bars are closed. Men circle the block to survey the selections. They are not interested in me. I am not afraid sleeping here. Well, I am not afraid of strangers. The rent boys look out for me when they can. I woke up and found a home run pie and a milk next to my head. Someone cared for me. Cared that I existed.





I shuffled back from peeing between two cars. I can feel eyes on me but I cannot see more than a few feet in from of me. I lost my contacts a few years back. I am so nearsighted I cannot make out anything but the edges of my environment. I sit back down on a piece of cardboard. I feel the eyes on me long before I see him.





Here he is- the bane of my existence. My lover and my tormentor. I still have not recovered from when he busted open my face. There is blood on the second shirt. I covered it with a third. He wanted my drugs on the second day. When I didn't do what he wanted, he grabbed me by my hair. We would fight, is his version. I wasn't really fighting. I was defending myself. The more I tried to get him off me, the more determined he was to get me. Then it happened.





"You are a punk bitch."





My mouth always got me in trouble. Calling someone a punk was different to him. He had been to prison for manslaughter as a 17 year old. I suspect he had been a punk to a lifer. He had found a way to survive in prison. He hated that term. With precision, he punched me so hard I saw the stars and the moon before my eyes. Blood began pouring down me face and on the hands I used to shield myself.





There was no one to help me. We were in a public area on a busy street. He stuck his hand down my shirts as if he owned me to grab for drugs. I would "hide" them in my sports bra. He took the contents- my last $20 and a single twenty of speed. He pushed me to the side as if to say he would be back.





And there he was. He was back. Six days later. I had wiped the blood away with alcohol wipes but my eyes were slightly black. He ignored my injuries. It was if he only looked into my eyes and saw the damage. He brought me flowers. Flowers for fucks sake. I was homeless and he brought me flowers. He handed them to me as if to say everything will be fine.





"I want us to do something special" he said.





I threw the flowers into the doorway. Fuck you. What now.





He asked me to open my mouth. He wanted to see if I trusted him. If I would let him in. Would I let him close to me. He crouched down. I never saw his face. I wasn't looking at him. I could smell the cheap cologne. He had been on a date. Or two. I hadn't seen him in days. I hadn't eaten in days. I wanted my milk. I wanted my home run pie. I closed my eyes. I tasted the bitterness. Acid. He gave me acid. I haven't eaten and he gave me acid. A date must have given him some acid. Now I am going to trip through a world I can't see with a man who beats me and yet I am forced to trust him because this is my life. What a trip.





" I want us to do something special" he says.