This morning I was dreaming of a woman wrapped in a yellow blanket, pleading and crying in the corner of her bedroom as a threatening man yelled at her. Then, I woke to realize I'd been hearing my neighbors screaming at each other through the shared wall of our townhomes. She was in the corner, crying loudly, saying something like "everything I do I do to try and please you, to be who you want me to be." He shouted "look at you! You disgust me!" and then I heard their back door slam and her sobbing continued.
These neighbors are not nearly as bad as the previous neighbors, who fought like this every week, but I've heard them fight numerous times the past year. Each time I'm instantly back in childhood, listening to my parents scream at one another, dreading the moment when one or the other of them would come in and use me as a weapon against the other.
I need to live where there are no people.
