Your eyes, My Poetry

Chapter 4

I don't trust people. If you came into my life at any point after I came to that decision, then I don't trust you either.

Weeks before I received my bachelors degree from FAMU, an article was written about me that exposed my four year long relationship with my college professor, Carter.

The article made it seem as if I fucked and sucked for my 4.0 GPA, and that I was this horrible person. All of my experiences and achievements became tainted. My reputation became one sided. I was known as the girl that cheated her way to the top.

I got a standing ovation when I gave my speech at the ceremony. I thought maybe that would gain me a bit of my dignity back. But after becoming a national headline for a day, I realized that this wasn't going to go away. Searching my name on the internet would forever lead to results that talk about my relationship and the fight that landed me in jail for a few hours. No amount of time would erase the memory or the public record of my private life.

Michelle was to blame for it. My college roommate for the full four years. We weren't the best of friends back then but I did consider her a friend. I even invited her to meet my family back in Texas for the holidays. She ate with my family, shitted in their home, and even attended a service at the church I grew up in. I would never understand how THAT woman could turn around and stab me in my back.

I beat her ass when I got my hands on her after that article. It made me feel better, but the fuzzy camera phone video of the fight still exist on various websites.

Michelle is writing for some newspaper now. She even sent me a letter, handwritten (who does that anymore?), apologizing and telling me how sorry she was. She told me that she was under pressure to deliver a great article and she knew about me and Carter from snooping, and thought she could write an anonymous article about it.

But when her editors found out about the story she was writing, they told her to make it more in depth with photos. She told me that she never intended to hurt me as bad as she did and that if she could do it over again, she would have told her editors to fuck off. Yeah, fucking right.

I hated that bitch and any chick like her. I hated people that appeared too friendly. I hated people wanting to become my friend.

Michelle wrote that she was jealous of me and didn't know how to tell me. This revelation made me especially weary of girls who complimented me.

I stopped going to church, because there were too many two faced people there. I deleted my social networking pages and left the country, trying to get away until everything calmed down. When Carter wrote a memoir, I ordered the book on Amazon and avoided going to the U.S. while he promoted the book. I was thankful that he only dedicated a very small paragraph to our relationship. I was glad that he respected and knew me enough to not put anymore of our business out there. In the opening of his book he said:

"It's very private. Even in being publicly judged, my relationship with her remains private. For those that bought this book with the hopes that I would cash in on the gossip, because I lost my job, I hope you aren't too deflated. The articles and blogs released the only relevant facts. There was no sexual relationship when she was a minor. There was no cheating or academic fraud. There was nothing that went on between us that was illegal. If your nose is still turned downward, then it's based on your subjective moral meter. Ethics is funny like that. I will say that she meant a lot to me, and the making of this book. And if you read this book from beginning to end, you will understand the ways she changed me."

And that was the end of any direct mention of me. He didn't sell that many books. But it had a very high rating on amazon. I was one of the people that wrote a review for it. I called it the best book I have ever read. I wondered if he read that review of his book and if he did, could he tell that it was written by me.