Also incomplete, and a year and a half old. Something like that.

He tried to clip my wings again.

I'm ashamed to admit that it felt like he succeeded.

I'm ashamed to admit how long it felt like that.

I'm ashamed to admit how much it felt like my fault, that my first reaction was to look at my conduct, my appearance, even after all I know, even after all these years.

That when I came home to the facebook message helpfully informing me that I had "really turned him on tonight" and that he had "just wanted to bend me over in that skirt," my secret, fearful thought was that the skirt, and therefore I, really was to blame.

That I had somehow let my guard down enough that, instead of being a clearly undesired attempt at reestablishing a long-lost control over my person, physical and otherwise, he had a plausible case for believing his comments to be welcome.

I am ashamed to admit that, instead of blasting him with enough incandescent rage to leave nothing but a scorch-mark on the earth where he stood, I asked my child how transparent my skirt was.  I checked the degree of cleavage revealed by my double-layered tank tops.  I thanked heaven for my forethought in layering my shirts, thereby shoring up my hypothetical defense against a nonexistent prosecution. I mentally scanned the imaginary transcript of my idle, inattentive conversation, the conversation I'd kept up, while wishing I was elsewhere, in order to keep myself from losing my mind through irritation and boredom.