DISCLAIMER**
I do not want this to be perceived as me trying to romanticize domestic abuse AT ALL! I have done research on this topic and most survivors say it was hard to leave the abuser, because they have fallen in love with them.
I am so confused.
It wasn’t supposed to be this way,
he was supposed to love me
not hurt me.
I can still feel where he slapped me,
still red, radiant, and stinging to the touch.
The green and blue bruises
trickling down my arms and legs,
like the tears, I no longer shed.
The smell of alcohol on his breath did not phase me anymore.
I became immune to the pain,
to the bounty of whiskey bottles sprawled around the house.
Even though I knew I had to leave him,
it was the hardest thing I ever did.
As I walked out those doors,
while he was sleeping, I walked over to the bedroom doors to say good-bye one last time.
But, I noticed he didn’t look like he could even harm a fly.
That is the man I fell in love with,
not this monster who shows his affection by hitting me.
When I looked at him, I only saw the warmth and love in his eyes;
I missed all the hurt and pain he caused me.
I saw warm, brown, honey eyes, not the cold dark black holes I usually see.
Just like that, I fell back to my old ways,
he was all I knew,
leaving him was like moving to a new city and not speaking their language.
I was so terribly lost without him, he was my rock,
my compass.
I loved him.
As I crawled back into bed with him,
I felt at home.
Laying beside him somehow felt right,
like he was my missing puzzle piece.
This was a piece I wrote responding to an Anthony Bourdain quote, “I’m so confused. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. Of all the places, of all the countries, of all the years of travel It’s here, in Iran, where I’m Greeted most warmly by strangers.” I found the first two lines very interesting. I feel as though abuse can be a cycle, as I wrote here, she felt lost without him even though she knew inside her mind that he was really bad for herself. I personally have no connection what so ever but as I did my Boys Will Be Boys poem I want to write and bring light to these situations, that are not talked about as often.
