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her mother was so good at living in guilt she would feed it and let it grow beyond all reasonable proportions tonya couldn’t remember what it was that her mother had to be guilty of it was one of those life routines that people fall into they beat themselves up for some imagined wrong was it love that bound tonya to this pain was it love that made her swallow a bottle of pills and slit her wrists was it love that had her constantly looking for the way out life for tonya was not something to be lived but something to escape from to run from to flee from for tonya life and death were so intimately entwined what was it about today that made me remember tonya was it my mind or my memories that led me down this path or was it my heart was it a lost desire to make a real and lasting connection with another human who was hurting like I tonya was pride and beauty in the face of danger I remember her standing against the storm facing the onslaught of fury laughing in the devil’s face as if she was saying is that all you got you aint so fucking bad she never said she enjoyed the rapes who enjoys getting the shit kicked out of them the split lip the broken ribs the cuts to her ankles and wrists the bruises that cover nearly every square inch of her body there is a politics between man and woman that never sees the outside world how we eat the flesh of the weak and make lies to burn in the fireplace they don’t want to see your life up close they prefer to you at a safe distance they are will to pay for the performance but that want to be lied to they don’t want to feel any real emotions they want the façade to stay glued together to keep them from seeing the raw they pretend that the blood is imaginary or something from a movie plot it was a trick to fool us they say that was not real that was a performance we paid for a performance and that is what it was there is nothing real to be seen here no one was hurt in entertaining us we didn’t see you drag the dead out the back and throw them into the trunk of your car this is all make believe fun and  games here have another drink and let us laugh this awkwardness away there is no need to get hysterical I’m she that woman was an actress did you notice how she asked her lover to give her some more to beat her like an animal no one does that I real life it is absurd it has to be absurd don’t you think so I mean who would think of such a thing to do such a thing it has to be joke a laugh tell me it is a joke that it was only acting superior acting she defines my soul these little words they say some much more she defines me she has grown on me like a high school girl as I watch her working at MCDonalds I am making a sketch of her mapping out her dimensions her face has this look of purity and I know that that is a disguise whispering sweet nothings into her pink ears multiple piercings I ask her if she believes in god if she would like to find her way to heaven on her way home from school some day she treated it as an interview I told her everything would be fine I was standing there meekly holding my tray of dead beef and genetically processed potatoes the smell of dead meat was on her cornered by the perfumed death she said that she had it coming that it was her right as an American to do her part for the war she would call if she knew about tonya how she begged me for that rhinoceros tattoo she knew that I had been drinking she could smell the whiskey she saw the devil on my forearm the actress said that she was so