Your average abusive boyfriends are always a bad thing, so I’ve been told. Famous abusive boyfriends have an even worse type of demented ego. Most people won’t have an experience with a romantic interest that’s hand prints are on your neck, heart, and picture hanging on Hard Rock Cafe, but I did. He had a greasy accent that stenches of urine and admiration, cut up denim, and interchanged lust for violence. I was in a full-time love affair with a fucking psycho.
I remember one instance, he’d turned up Notorious B.I.G.’s Ready to Die CD until you could feel the bass vibrating your pancreas and wail on my face. I’d be bloody and heart-broken on Jamaica Ave, and he’d clean me up. He’d clean me up like he wasn’t the one to do it. He’d take me to the Upper East-side, buy me Marc Jacobs coats and a street hot-dog. He’d blast a Cyndi Lauper song in hopes I’d forget, and I usually did. The scars and bruises were there, but love was there too, the lights were there too and I wasn’t in my right mind. He’d never sleep, so I never slept. I never had time to rest to think about what my world was turning into because nothing ever slowed down.
He was a dirty motherfucker. Not Lower East-Side dirty, I’m talking leather and heavy metal at Joe’s Pub filthy. I was so enamored that I lost my sight and the rest of my senses too. He made me feel safe. He protected me like a rare Warhol in The Factory, it was clear that I was his, but I allowed it. I really believed he was the only thing I needed to survive. He was so sick that if his beatings didn’t work, he’d take me to Yonkers and show me how I could be living if I ever left or disobeyed him, if I ever knocked the hustle. He let it be known that he was the reason I was alive and relevant. In the same breath, he’d take me to Harlem and show me what we could be if I just relinquished all inhibitions and dived entirely into his world. We could have our own renaissance; we could be historical if I just let go of what I thought I was and adopted what he wanted me to be.
He’d isolate me from all friends and family, and only let me out to work and accompany parties with him. I wasn’t quite his trophy, I was his latest project. I thought Angie Martinez, Wendy Williams, and Funk Master Flex were my actual friends because those were the only people actually igniting conversation, even if it was just the radio.
I breathed and ate him. I was becoming sick too just like him. I was mean, cold, and in a hurry. Most abused partners end up dead or runaway. I’m unique because he kicked me out. The money ran out, the rent was too high, the hustle slowed down, and he kicked me to the curb with fake bags from Canal Street and a one-way ticket from LaGuardia back home.
I arrived back in my hometown and nobody was the wiser of this paradise in Hell I was living. The bruises were still there, but it’s funny how people tend to deny anything being wrong as long as you’re smiling. I got back in the groove of things, until I’d see others with strikingly similar scarred faces, bruises on the same body parts, and using phrases that he taught me. My stomach dropped and I realized I wasn’t the only one that bastard tossed around. He was cheating on me, giving love and punches away to anyone dumb enough to stay with his ass. Everyone he came across was a little bit darker and ruder afterwards, forever stained and damaged by the abuse he administered. He replaced these starving people’s hearts of gold with rotten apples.
Well, except a few. Some stayed with his stupid ass and tried to make it work, and for some it did. They went from abused projects to superstars. If you can it with that crazy asshole, you can make it anywhere and do anything. I can’t lie. I still love him. I wish we could’ve made it work. Before sleep, I imagine how it would be to be his sweetheart. Walking downtown, married to the night, and divorcing anything my past taught me. My sweet dreams are made of my name in the marquee and my boots pounding the concrete jungle. I would own him and pour whiskey on his lap because I triumphed. Despite the ass-whipping, heavy leather, gunshots, urine stains, rats, and seedy nightclubs with shifty characters; I still love New York.
I’m an artist (by the way of writing and creative direction in music and fashion) born in New York City, currently living in Atlanta, Ga that enjoys being observed and exploited, so I’m hardly a rarity.
Love Letter to New York & Bad Boyfriends
Your average abusive boyfriends are always a bad thing, so I’ve been told. Famous abusive boyfriends have an even worse type of demented ego. Most people won’t have an experience with a romantic interest that’s hand prints are on your neck, heart, and picture hanging on Hard Rock Cafe, but I did. He had a greasy accent that stenches of urine and admiration, cut up denim, and interchanged lust for violence. I was in a full-time love affair with a fucking psycho.
I remember one instance, he’d turned up Notorious B.I.G.’s Ready to Die CD until you could feel the bass vibrating your pancreas and wail on my face. I’d be bloody and heart-broken on Jamaica Ave, and he’d clean me up. He’d clean me up like he wasn’t the one to do it. He’d take me to the Upper East-side, buy me Marc Jacobs coats and a street hot-dog. He’d blast a Cyndi Lauper song in hopes I’d forget, and I usually did. The scars and bruises were there, but love was there too, the lights were there too and I wasn’t in my right mind. He’d never sleep, so I never slept. I never had time to rest to think about what my world was turning into because nothing ever slowed down.
He was a dirty motherfucker. Not Lower East-Side dirty, I’m talking leather and heavy metal at Joe’s Pub filthy. I was so enamored that I lost my sight and the rest of my senses too. He made me feel safe. He protected me like a rare Warhol in The Factory, it was clear that I was his, but I allowed it. I really believed he was the only thing I needed to survive. He was so sick that if his beatings didn’t work, he’d take me to Yonkers and show me how I could be living if I ever left or disobeyed him, if I ever knocked the hustle. He let it be known that he was the reason I was alive and relevant. In the same breath, he’d take me to Harlem and show me what we could be if I just relinquished all inhibitions and dived entirely into his world. We could have our own renaissance; we could be historical if I just let go of what I thought I was and adopted what he wanted me to be.
He’d isolate me from all friends and family, and only let me out to work and accompany parties with him. I wasn’t quite his trophy, I was his latest project. I thought Angie Martinez, Wendy Williams, and Funk Master Flex were my actual friends because those were the only people actually igniting conversation, even if it was just the radio.
I breathed and ate him. I was becoming sick too just like him. I was mean, cold, and in a hurry. Most abused partners end up dead or runaway. I’m unique because he kicked me out. The money ran out, the rent was too high, the hustle slowed down, and he kicked me to the curb with fake bags from Canal Street and a one-way ticket from LaGuardia back home.
I arrived back in my hometown and nobody was the wiser of this paradise in Hell I was living. The bruises were still there, but it’s funny how people tend to deny anything being wrong as long as you’re smiling. I got back in the groove of things, until I’d see others with strikingly similar scarred faces, bruises on the same body parts, and using phrases that he taught me. My stomach dropped and I realized I wasn’t the only one that bastard tossed around. He was cheating on me, giving love and punches away to anyone dumb enough to stay with his ass. Everyone he came across was a little bit darker and ruder afterwards, forever stained and damaged by the abuse he administered. He replaced these starving people’s hearts of gold with rotten apples.
Well, except a few. Some stayed with his stupid ass and tried to make it work, and for some it did. They went from abused projects to superstars. If you can it with that crazy asshole, you can make it anywhere and do anything. I can’t lie. I still love him. I wish we could’ve made it work. Before sleep, I imagine how it would be to be his sweetheart. Walking downtown, married to the night, and divorcing anything my past taught me. My sweet dreams are made of my name in the marquee and my boots pounding the concrete jungle. I would own him and pour whiskey on his lap because I triumphed. Despite the ass-whipping, heavy leather, gunshots, urine stains, rats, and seedy nightclubs with shifty characters; I still love New York.
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Myles Johnson
I’m an artist (by the way of writing and creative direction in music and fashion) born in New York City, currently living in Atlanta, Ga that enjoys being observed and exploited, so I’m hardly a rarity.