The Glow of 3 AM

Edited to update: I'm in the middle of packing and found old wedding photos that I didn't even know I had. Almost four years ago, I thought I threw all of that away. I still have the scar from the broken glass that shattered across the driveway. But in that haze of betrayal and awakening, I thought to myself, maybe I should save something, just to show my kids one day if they ask to see proof that their parents were married. So I tucked a few away in a box, and forgot about it. It's amazing the things you can hide away, even from yourself. Finding those pictures did number on me. They made me sad, not because I missed him, but because these photos were the last taken of the girl I used to be. The girl I finally am again.

Years ago, on that night, at 3 AM, when I found out about everything, the affairs weren't what stung. When I asked him why he wanted to rip our family apart, he told me it was my fault. He said, "It's because I don't love you. I never did." I don't love you. I never did. Not when we were dating, not on our wedding day, not when I gave birth to his sons. Never. I don't love this man, I haven't for over a decade, but the fact that he told me that he never loved me is an unhealing wound in my heart.

The fact that despite everything I did, how I turned myself inside out and shut my mouth, how I did everything he asked, how I raise his children, cleaned his house, bowed down on my knees, it wasn't enough. I know, I know, I am enough. I'm a million times better than him. I understand that. I've overcome so much, but sometimes, sometimes his voice comes back. The scar splits open and starts to weep. It makes me question everything about myself, even though I know it is a lie.

I stay up way too late every night. It's just what I do, and lately I've been thinking and thinking in the stillness of my apartment. I don't want y'all to think that I spend my life lamenting late at night. 98% of the time, I don't think about. I live in the miraculous moments in my life. I don't let it get to me. I'm elated to be on my own, excited to be my own person, but sometimes the memories slip in and make me think about the girl I used to be.

The Glow of 3 AM

You would feed me the Bible for breakfast, shove its pages down my throat, flog me with its spine at night. You used the bright, beautiful words of God to maim my soul, the Good Book to tell me I was bad. But you always skipped over the verses condemning rape and abuse and adultery. You and God and every other man were all immune.

You told me that I was made for you. Only you. Made to warm your bed, to bow down on my knees, to clean your toilets and make your meals. So I sealed my mouth, and you took my voice. You were never good enough for me, but I followed after you like a lovesick dog chasing after its own tail. I would never catch up. I would never find love. Too much. But never enough.

In the lightless bathroom, I scratched through the thin skin of my arms, trying to find the girl you wanted me to be. I stayed in the cold tub, a porcelain tomb, wondering how long it would take for the water to turn pink. While you hid in the closet, intermediately texting other women and watching porn, destroying our marriage by the glare of a six inch screen.

On New Year's Eve, I lay alone in our bed, long after putting the children to sleep. I dodged their questions of where their daddy was. Fireworks, shards of blue and red light, flared in the distance as you crept in at 3 AM, paled skin, smelling of sweat and sin. You kissed me on my forehead and lied to me. And then I lied to myself so I could sleep.

By the bloom of morning light, I am happy now because you’re gone, memories buried in the blackest of dirt, deep beneath my grandmother’s front porch. I no longer fear you, but sometimes your darkness seeps in through the cracks in the windows or the spaces in the door jams. It sinks its claws into my heart. But I exorcised your demons. You can abide here no more.

The girl who was never enough for you is everything. My flesh has healed, my knees no longer bruised, but I will never shut my mouth now, painted red on the Sabbath. I serve no man, only myself. My God is love, not condemnation. There is only brilliance within me and without. I am glowing. I am enough. Enough.