Heart Me

The hours tick by,

I look at my bloody hands and use the sink to haul my bruised body up to face the mirror.

a reflection of me appears,

a broken woman in her forties, beautifully and intricately damaged. a black right eye, busted lower lip.

Leave, their voices say.

I reach a bloody finger to my lip and tentatively touch it.

pain.

I drop my hand, my eyes never leaving my reflection.

her eyes were dull,

no glisten or sparkle left.

He has taken it all.

"Get outta the restroom, b****!" he shouts.

like he'd won.

which he always wins.

"O..okay."

why respond? But had I not, he would knock the door down, and continue what he's started.

he is cussing, saying things,

but my ears begin to ring.

I am deaf to all except the beats of my heart that refuse to cease.

why am i still alive? i wonder.

But I've tried. I have tried to end this, I've tried the pizza call to the police.

But all those times I've been shunned.

And the razors hurt, I could never bring myself to complete it. Poison is expensive, and lynching is too painful.

I would rather suffer pain and be alive than suffer pain before death.

He said til death do us apart 23 years ago,

but I wish that death came now more than ever

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