Marrying George Clooney

dear mr. trump,
many, many years ago i was in an abusive relationship. when i say abusive, i mean i was bruised & battered. this was years ago. years & years ago. when i was young & had no self-worth, no self-esteem what so ever. i had no sense of what it meant to love myself, the whole of me, with all my imperfections. i was young, and truly hated myself, and i did awful things to myself. i treated my own life as if it didn’t matter at all. and as you can imagine, or maybe you can’t, i attracted men into my life who treated me badly. horribly. they constantly berated me, telling me how i wasn’t good enough, pretty enough, or sexy enough. or beautiful. i attracted these men into my life at a time when i was lost & scared & needed – wanted – to feel beautiful. to feel special. i didn’t have a fucking clue who i was in the world. and so, i dated and slept with bad men. mean men. crazy men. and then, i stayed with one for years. i knew he was bad for me. i knew he was awful. he was a fucking bully. he was the kind of man who would lift me up only to beat me down. he was the kind of guy who would humiliate me in public. he would shove me in a corner. and when i say shove, i mean push. he would tell me repeatedly that he was wonderful & great and that he was gonna take care of me. my savior. make my life great (again). the kinda guy who thought he had all the answers. he was like a petulant little boy when he didn’t get his way. and by petulant, i mean cruel, nasty, hideous. and then there was this: the moment when he wrapped his hands around my throat – around my throat – and he was so filled with rage. seething. wild. crazy. the kind of rage that spreads like wild fire. the kind of wild fire that ignites an entire explosion. the kind of explosion that often ends with broken spirits, and bones. he had his hands around my throat and i mustered every thing i had in me, and i spit in his face. yes, i did. i gathered my saliva, and i spit a wad in his face, and i pushed him away hard, and i grabbed my bag, and i left. i got in my battered beat up car, and drove the fuck away. and while i sat in traffic, the black and blue marks started to manifest, show, and i could see them in the rearview mirror. i can see where his hands were wrapped around my throat, and i was startled, mortified. i wept the kind of tears that leave stains. i was horrified that i had stayed with such an awful horrible guy. that i had no self-worth at all. none. that i was so misguided that i equated anger with power, and desperation with love. i knew that day, in that car, sitting in that traffic that i would never go back to that man. ever. or any man like that. i knew that i needed to rise up. to own my life. to stop being bullied, and mistreated. to find the beauty within myself. to find my voice. my passion. to be able to say no to all the false fucking promises that come with someone keeping another person small, and in fear. i walked away that day and i never looked back or turned back. it was what spiritual folks call a huge fucking turning point.
i healed.
i grew.
i dealt with my self-esteem and self-love daily. weekly. minute by minute on some days.
and finally – finally – i was able to smell a bad, awful, shitty man a mile away.
you, mr. trump, are a bad, awful, shitty man. you’re an abuser. the worst kind of abuser. you’re a mean unhappy miserable man who has grabbed the throats of millions of people, telling them – reminding them every single fucking day now – that they’re not good enough, not pretty enough, not smart enough or worthy enough, and that you’re the only one who is gonna save them. that you’re gonna make us all great again. you, mr. trump, are so full of shit. you’re the kind of man who beats the crap out of people just to feel strong and powerful, mighty and important.
i’m quite sick of men like you, mr. trump.
you’re not gonna live in the white house because millions of women aren’t going to let you, because what you fail to recognize in your arrogance is that many, many, many women – and many, many, many men – millions of men – will not allow an abuser back in ANY house, especially one we hold so dear.
amy