He left me alone on tear soaked sheets
in a room, in a city, in a country I did not know.
I stayed, loving him was all I knew.
He left me alone on blood soaked sheets
surrounded by children I brought into his barren world.
I stayed, loving him was all I knew.
He left me alone on urine soaked sheets
my shattered childhood hitting me in unrelenting waves.
I could not stay, loving me is all I know.
Battered woman
It is not a moniker that applies to me
I tell myself.
I have not been hit or hurt
or beaten into submission.
The slow neglect was consistent,
till I was ground down
from diamond to dust.
He never needed to put
a bullet through the heart,
there are more ways to skin a cat
than heaven ever dreamed of.
They don’t come back like you think they will,
the memories.
Not like flashing images in a kids’ flipbook
or photos in a faded album, or an 8mm home movie.
Bruises on shoulders, swollen genitals
skin eyeshadow blue and concord-grape purple
arm frozen into an L for for days together
pain that you have not known even in childbirth
drowning in terror without end.
And always always the infernal itching on your back
which you cannot reach, or get respite from.
His small soft penis
infecting my small soft mouth
holding down my small strong tongue
into silence.
It speaks now, this tongue, stronger
than any manhood or fatherhood he claimed.
