When I was 13 I tried to kill myself. The letter I wrote and left to be found was to my mother. "Please leave," it said, "one day he will kill you too." She's still there, though, still with you and more trapped than ever. Mine was a waste of a perfectly good, raw, honest letter. I should have written one of those to you, instead.

You came into my life when I was in the second grade. I still remembered and loved my real father and I think that's why you tried so hard to control me. I knew that four of you couldn't have added up to him and I think that's why you hated me. I hated you back, and I think that's why you beat me.

I left your life when I was in the tenth grade. I remember that day so clearly. And that's really remarkable, because there's a lot I don't remember from those days. Although still I remember much, much more than I want to. But I remember leaving. I remember, that same day, just an hour or so before, the last time you hit me. The last punch, the last slap, the last black eye or fistful of hair or steel-toed boot crushing my lips and leaving blood on my teeth, the last time you could pick me up by my throat and scream at me as my feet dangled inches off the ground and I sobbed back out what air I could get. That last time, though, was pretty weak. Even a big tough man like you has a hard time backhanding teenaged girls and driving all at once. Ah well. Even so. I hope it felt good. I hope you got what you wanted out of it. I knew then it was the last time. I was gone for good that day. Did you know it too? Did you think I'd come back the way my mother did, every time? I have to think you knew better. You never tried to make excuses to me, never called me like you did her to try to justify all the pain the whole family lived, daily. Maybe she bought it but I never would have.

Though I have never seen you again, you're still a presence in my life. You are the reason that today, I am oh so sensitive to touches of dismay in someone else's voice---to the girl I was those years ago, unhappy voices meant I'd be getting hurt again soon. You are the reason that today, I cry at the slightest frustration, confusion, anger, pain---I got too used to crying as the only means of expressing my negative emotions that wouldn't get me kicked around some more. You are the reason I won't let my husband keep his guns in our house---I don't want to know if I inherited your tendency to brandish them like toys when you got pissed off.

But.

You are the reason that today, I know I can survive anything---I might cry a lot in the middle of things, but I survived you, and breakups and evictions and career choice mistakes are nothing compared to your violent tyranny. You are the reason that today, I'm the bra-burning bitch you constantly (and wrongly) accused my mother of being---maybe you thought that was an insult, but you'd better believe that if standing up to controlling, abusive pieces of shit like you makes me a "bra-burning bitch", I want to know where I get my membership card. You are the reason that today, I am precisely what you hate and fear the most---an independent woman who makes a man earn my respect rather than my according it to him automatically because he's equipped with a penis. And there's not one thing you can do about it. Isn't the irony beautiful? Control this, buddy. Let's see you try.

I have never stopped dreaming of you. It's been seven years now, and you're still there, uninvited, when I wake up gasping and sweating. But in the first days of my freedom, the dreams were nightmares of you hurting me. Now, the dreams are of my hurting you. My dreams are violent---very much so. Violence, you see, is something I learned at your knee, and I bet that if I tried it I'd be good at it.

I used to hate you and fear you. Now, the fear is gone but the hate's still strong, and good. Oh yes, it's good. It is, in fact, great. See, I think I hate you more now than you ever hated me. That means I win; I knew you well enough to know what your rulebook looks like. And that means that, if I should ever happen to lay eyes on you again, you'd better remember that now, I'm not a scared girl, but an angry woman, and that there is an eight years' debt of pain that I still owe to you. You're going to have to call in the I.O.U. in order to be repaid, but if you ask for it, you son of a bitch, I will repay that debt in full, with interest, with pleasure.

I hear you're getting old now. I hear your health is not so good. What a shame. I bet you thought you'd always be such a big tough man that your fists would carry you through your parasitic and hopeless life. What will happen if you pick a fight you can't carry through with? And what will happen if you pick a fight with someone who's got even more hate and resentment and frustration built up inside than you've got?

If I should ever happen to lay eyes on you again, Joe Stark, I suggest you be very polite.

Best,

Michelle