Marisa Silva-Dunbar

UNTITLED POEM by Ivan de Monbrison With Russian Translation

The room is empty. Silence is hidden in a box. A mirror speaks to itself. Pieces of a man are scattered around the room as if he were a doll. At this hour, there is nobody in the street. It seems that in the neighboring apartment there are some lunatics talking to blind men in an incomprehensible language. Regret takes the spot of desire, who was sitting on a chair by the front door, and has started vomiting.

Комната пуста. Тишина спрятана в коробке. Зеркало говорит само с собой. Кусочки человека разбросаны по комнате, словно это кукла. В этот час на улице никого. Кажется, что в соседней квартире, есть безумцов которые разговаривают со слепыми на непонятном языке. Сожаление занимает место желания, садится на стул, поставленный рядом с входной дверью, и начинает рвать.

TOO MUCH by Marisa Silva-Dunbar

During the summer of wooing, 2018, he called late at night and told me jokes, waxed

philosophical on the meaning of love. His answer copied from Moulin Rouge, “to love and be

loved in return.” He had been floundering the last two months; fired from his job, he filled up

his days with drinking Marble Double White, playing Call of Duty. I finally felt my life was

coming together; I could be a stable influence.

We had known each other so long, but this was the first time we unspooled our worries

and secrets. He said he was drowning, and I was a light guiding him to the surface. “You will be

in my life forever. You are a big deal. You’re the only woman my dog has ever acted that close

with aside from my mom.” He used this script on every woman he wanted to fuck.

I wrote little notes to myself in Google Docs, clichéd things he’d say: “You’re not like

other women,” and “I’ll treat you like no other man has.” I typed hints about his fathomless

appetite for women. How he posted pictures just two months ago of a woman, and they had

seemingly disappeared off his Instagram. He now had a new girl he liked to get wasted with. She

and I exchanged follows to size up the competition. She seemed emotionally immature—chasing

after him on social media: making his dog her profile picture, commenting on every post, writing

a poem about how he was the one. He posted a picture of a plane dropping a heart with the

caption “If you’re not appalled, you have not been paying attention.” She commented “You’re

dropping your heart to me over Nob Hill. I catch it!!!” He never replied.

When I asked about her, he shook his head: “She was a hook-up turned drinking buddy.”

She became the shadow in the corner. Later that summer, on the night of the freak hailstorm that

briefly turned our city into a winter wonderland, she blew up his phone at 3 a.m.—six or seven

times in a row. He stayed so I could hear everything. She begged, “Let me come over. I’m your

girl! I love you!”

He sighed, “No you’re not,” and hung up the phone. He was nonchalant and I wanted to

believe: “She told me she was psycho over me. She’s not girlfriend material—a party girl and

not that smart.” She kept calling.

This became a pattern over the next few years. It was easier to be angry with her. I saw

her as a Venus fly trap; he was in danger. “The last time she came over drunk, she took off all

her clothes and started yelling that we need to have sex. I told her no. She became an enraged

bitch. I kicked her out.” He called her two weeks later “to make amends” after he was sober for

six days. It ended with her screaming down the phone at him, wailing about what a shit he was

for not letting her live with him. “I didn’t fucking know you when you signed your lease. Deal

with your own fucking money problems.”

I told him that still being in contact with her upset me—that it made me physically ill, he

responded “It’s nothing, it’s over anyway. She’s constant drama.”

Her name would light up his phone over the years (along with others). It would bring a

sense of dread creeping up my neck. I wanted to feel sorry for her. Hadn’t he made it clear he

wanted nothing to do with her? Now I look back and wonder what recycled sweet nothings he

used to soothe her, to keep her coming back for more.

A year later, his words to her would swim back to me. I became the love sick puppy, the

crazy woman in the attic. Scorned. Scorched. I told myself, “everything she says is a lie.”

Eventually, I learned he orchestrated paranoia. He’d laugh about the time an ex sent him

nudes, and while he meant to send them to his best friend, he accidentally sent it to his girlfriend.

He’d brag about fucking two women with similar names and how he slipped up and said the

other’s name. In each instance, he thought the woman overstepped when she started questioning

him. He’d tell them they were crazy, scream in their face to “get the fuck out of my house.”

I became a tool to use against other women. “You intimidate the other women in my

life,” he said it like a compliment. “They know you’re my ride or die.” I liked the idea of being

“a priority,” though I was never shown. The word was enough. I would carefully remember their

names, to keep track of how many he was seeing at the same time: Amber, Diana, Lauren,

Leslie, Jackie, Kelly, Melissa, Valerie, Katryn, Angela1, Angela 2, Casey, and Jacy. I was his

secret keeper.

When he was fucking any woman who was “just a friend,” he became enraged when I

questioned the different things he told us. We had been compatible because neither of us wanted

kids, but then he would pursue women with children. I asked him what made him change his

mind. He didn’t answer. We were on the freeway, he was drunk and speeding. I started crying

asking him to slow down. We ended up back at his place. When he got out of the car, he turned

to me, “I’m sorry you’re crying.”

My pride tethered me to him. I believed I could pull him from the abyss when his

drinking was taking up his days and on the nights he told me he didn’t want to exist. His mother

asked me to help. He wanted to say goodbye. I told myself, “I am stable. I am sturdy; I can

handle this. I can be a good influence.” I was always trying to save him; early morning trips to

the ER when he didn’t want to call an ambulance. He was in agony due to pancreatitis, still

drinking beer or vodka before he left. If he was tired of living, he would call and I’d jump in my

car and speed to his house.

The last time this happened was autumn of 2020. He called, asked what I was doing. “I’m

picking up a burger with Carmen, at Holy Cow.” He started yelling at me. How dare I be ten

minutes away from his house and not let him know. “That is so fucked up,” he kept spitting

down the phone. His tone changed, “I don’t want to be here anymore.”

I dropped Carmen off and raced to his place. When I got there he was sitting outside,

drinking from a twelve pack and smoking a cigarette. He smirked, “What’s up buttercup?” I told

him I was worried; what about what he had said ten minutes ago? He acted confused, then said,

“I’m still mad you got dinner without me.”

He always loved to “play the hero,” for any woman willing to be a damsel, and some

unwilling. One childhood friend confided she couldn’t stay at her house since her ex-husband

broke in, stole her things. When he heard this, he repeatedly called every police station in the

Tampa area, threatening to kill the ex if they didn’t handle things in the appropriate manner. The

childhood friend called me the next day begging to get him to stop, since he wouldn’t listen to

her.

Last year we were sitting outside on a January night, under his heat lamp. He told me his

old drinking buddy called and asked him if she would make a good mother. I wish she could hear

the glee in his voice as he shared his answer. “I told her ‘fuck no! You can barely take care of

yourself. You’re a fucking mess. Stick to being a party girl.’ What a dumb cunt,” he took a drag

of his cigarette then laughed. He called her a few weeks later and asked her to come over. She

did. I walked away.

I worried he was successful in poisoning me against her for good. My therapist told me I had

seen her at her worst—there was a chance she wasn’t like that at all. I reached out to her after I

left. She shared the story of how a few months earlier, he raged in her face, skin mottled by the

blood rushing; he shoved her out the door. She was barefoot in just her shorts and a cheap bra.

“I’d have dreams he’d try to burn me and him down in that house.”

When I dream of him, I am trying to hide or run away; I turn quickly behind a corner holding

my breath hoping he won’t see me. I am always looking for an escape. Here is my shame cut

open like a mango cubed in neat pieces waiting to be consumed. I should’ve left sooner. This is

what echoes as I try to sleep at night.