Words from No-Man's Land

Close up of a chess board with opposing King and Queen chess pieces in the foreground.

By. Zoe Huot-Link

Content Warning: Emotional Abuse

I would kill the king if it meant liberating his people. Kings are not always virtuous. I grew up believing the world was honest, but I have learned to keep guarded. Walls protect people from becoming prey.

I had a king. I found myself under a reign of manipulation. I broke and then took control of my bonds. I think all people in my position should feel justified in doing the same.

A master manipulator does not realize his craft. He believes himself to be flawless. Manipulation at its worst leads people into mousetraps. Words and emotions, falling one by one, in any chosen direction. It’s easy, for a master manipulator. In their center view, a girl with empty limbs and swollen wrists. Bite marks and bruises. Perfect target. Some master manipulators form a collection. They become skilled, develop craft. Prey nailed to the wall or sat in line on a shelf. High up, all around, reminders of what’s been lost.

Ezekiel is a master manipulator. When I met him, he was the boyfriend of my sister’s ex-best friend. He was nothing. As time passed, though, he began to notice me. He flirted. Cheeky boy, always behind his girlfriend’s back. He never admitted to it, he continued along the trajectory of his relationship; I began watching. While I watched, I forgot about my heart. I had, blinded, left it untended.

Ezekiel, like a wolf, crept in at night. I was weak and he stole me, darting in so fast I couldn’t see.

I thought I was crazy, I cried to my sister often wondering why I felt the way I did. She comforted me. I tried to stay away from Ezekiel. In my journal, I was writing I love him. I hated myself because of my heart.

A year and a half later, he became my boyfriend. He had finally broken up with my sister’s ex-best friend, he emerged unscathed. He told me he had been into me. I followed my heart silently and solemnly.

Ezekiel never saw our relationship or our breakup as my loss. My walls and my words, in his eyes, were never meant to keep him out. The manipulation game convinced the perpetrator he was the victim. The whole game, apparently, I was eating him alive. I was feasting, he was bleeding. A master manipulator forgets he built the throne he’s sat on.

People in my life advised against being with him but he told me no one loved me like he did. Ezekiel was dangerous: he did poorly in school, he often cussed out his parents, he had a pattern of cheating on girlfriends, he crashed my family’s car after crashing his own. My vision blurred as he convinced me we were alone together. He pulled strings, one at a time, and people fell from my life: my parents, my siblings, my best friends. 

My words were not mine. Ezekiel would tell me I was not who I thought I was. He told me it was my selfish tendencies that brought our relationship to its cliffside. As I wanted to leave for college and grow, he said the friends I was making were stealing me away. Ezekiel said the people entering my life did not care for me like he did. I was misusing love, he concluded. He pushed me to the edge of my sanity. He told me to jump. I curled up and I cried under his words.

He idealized me like a goddess while stripping me of skin. I didn’t want to give Ezekiel my body. My heart was his, my corpse still mine. But while telling me to quiet my singing in the car, while telling me I overplayed my music, his adulation and greed over my body consumed me. His words rolled under and twisted inside me. He crumbled my confidence and violated my vanity. He peppered me with compliments on my body. My body, my body. He stirred my body until I lost that, too.

Close up dark silhouette of a wolf in front of an orangish sunset.

Ezekiel, a holy name, Ezekiel, the strength of god.

After I left for college and finally broke up with Ezekiel, he entered his senior year of high school. My distance gained him new leverage. I lost the impact of my voice in our school. Everyone we had known watched him mourn. He performed to be broken. Everyone was convinced I crushed something beautiful.

When everyone tells me he is holy, when all I hear is holy man how can I breathe? How can I see?

I am alive today to speak. Words of mine hold great power, the ones I had lost back then. My words are my walls and they will not fall like they did when I was with him.

Ezekiel surveys and understands every bone in human behavior, every feather. I notice the way our friends cave to his will. Musculature is no barrier to stop him from controlling hearts. 

When I saw Ezekiel two years after we broke up, I realized that when I left, I had saved myself. For so long I felt guilty. Now, I see him for what he is.

I have regained my self-esteem, my love, my body, my heart. I understand now the position I was in while we dated. I tell Ezekiel’s people what happened to me. I use my words and they listen. My words are my weapon.

From now on, I’ll live between kingdoms, protected by my words. I watch Ezekiel, my devil in disguise. If I don’t, who knows what other games he might play.

No-man’s land is my place to test and build and re-locate power. No-man’s land is a woman’s opportunity to gain level ground. I believe I’ll see a world, one day, where words do well to keep out wolves, where liars lose their reign.

Zoe Huot-Link was born and raised in Maplewood, Minnesota. She is a winner of the Manitou Creative Writing Fellowship for Summer 2020 through the Literary Arts Institute at the College of Saint Benedict. In Fall 2019 she studied ancient calligraphy and martial arts in China at Southwest University. She writes primarily poetry and creative nonfiction about constructs of beauty and power. Drawing is the other half of her life; you can find her art on Instagram: @zoemae.art