Toula Bongiorno

A Smart Woman

(Words by Toula Bongiorno, photo by Tom Dawkins)

The phone stayed warm in my hand long after my child’s voice receded, the dial tone buzzing against my ear, as though it’s trying to convey something I am just not smart enough to understand.

I am not a smart woman.

Rain thuds against the roof. Michael has already gone to bed. He left the hallway light on for me again, and he picked flowers for me today, too. Purple. Told me they could never be as ‘jaw droppingly’ beautiful as me. A curious thing to say to a woman coloured purple and yellow like rotting fruit, fallen or perhaps shaken off of its tree in the summertime. The flowers weren’t perfect either, some missing leaves and a couple of dry petals. But that might be the way he sees me. Nothing and nobody can stay beautiful forever. When he’s sweet, it only makes things harder.

I used to think that love was perhaps meant to be a little frightening. Like when you wait for the storm to break over the house, even going so far as to call the silence before it peace.

Michael isn’t cruel all the time. That’s what my poor children can’t understand. Nobody has ever understood. How could they? Sometimes he’ll press a cool beer into my hand after work and rub circles into the back of my neck like he can feel every ache inside of me. Sometimes he makes me laugh so hard I forget to be scared of him. Sometimes he’ll pull me into his chest like I’m actually something worth protecting.

I crave his attention like the first rush of nicotine after a hard day. It doesn’t seem fair, but they stay longer than the shouting. Longer than my crying children and the smashed plates and the broken beer glass pressed to my neck and the bruises hidden under long sleeves in the summertime.

I was going to make my spaghetti bolognese tonight. But Michael broke my only good, thick bottomed pot. God fucking forbid I burn it. I burn it, and throw away any chance at peace I might have for the night. Michael wasn’t happy about my lack of motivation to cook dinner, but he pretended not to care. He did break the pot, after all. He took the keys, bought take away for himself, came back and went to bed. Those twenty-seven minutes and fourteen seconds were the quietest I’ve had all month. The house settled itself, soft and easy, like it could finally breathe out. No television hum. No need to listen for the creaking of footsteps on floorboards.

No voices. Just the fan on the ceiling, moving slow and steady, and the rain dripping from the gutter outside, and the light smell of the eucalyptus I had cleaned the countertops with. I sat at the kitchen table, cigarette between my fingers, and listened to the quiet. Listened to it spread through the rooms. Michael’s place never shouted at me. Never yelled. Like it felt bad, like it knew I couldn’t take any more. I realised, with a look upwards to nowhere in particular, that it was the first time, in who knew how long, that nobody had needed anything from me. The silence felt so strange, I was just waiting for it to turn ugly. Ugly like your protector becoming your very threat.

So much for the straightforward knight in shining armour all little girls are supposed to dream about. When I was a girl, I was foolish enough to actually believe I dreamt more than others. As it turns out, everyone dreams. Only not so many choose to put in the effort or only so many get opportunities to make those dreams come true. It seems almost on purpose, the cruelty that's inflicted upon me when I remember that little girl. My girls are dreamers. I hope it doesn’t end up getting them where it's gotten me. Dreams are for rich people, people who don’t live off of drug deals and the Department of Social Security’s unemployment benefit. I remember how that little girl used to dream. How now my greatest achievement daily, if I’m lucky, is to avoid a sweaty, hard fist to my chest.

Maybe that was the saddest thing about love. Sometimes it won’t just leave when it should, and there are certainly times where you will feel like it should. Sometimes it stays curled up inside bruised places, breathing soft and stubborn, making a home out of all your hurt. I used to think love was surviving somebody. Taking the shouting with all of those softer moments you get, and stitching them together into something liveable. But Mike touched me like I was something he could fix, sticky tape together, and that broke my heart worse than anything ever had. That night, I lay awake listening to the rain, cherishing the silence. Somewhere across town, my girls were sleeping with me too.

I think part of me still believed love had to leave bruises and ugly tears behind to prove that it had really been there. Maybe real love is not the kind that will ask you to bleed for it. Maybe that's how violence will fool you in the end- it will teach you to worship every crumb of tenderness like it’s proof of love. No woman deserves that. But perhaps that is all I am worth.

Toula Bongiorno is a 17 year old artist who uses words to make sense of her experiences and the world around her. Writing is how she turns her thoughts and confusions into things she may express with others.

Tom Dawkins is a 17 year old Hobart-based photographer with a strong interest in portrait, event, maco, and street photography. He has provided photography for organisations including Youth ARC, the South Hobart Resilience Fair, Maritime Museum Tas, Hobart Exercise Physiology, Dress for Success, Taroona High School, and Hobart College. He also has embarked on several personal photography projects, including this one to pair his photography with Toula's creative writing.