Leave Or Die

The first slap stung
slightly more than the veiled insults
sandwiched in bitter silences
The second slap months later was met with
barely veiled surprise.

His fist,
his heel,
the quiet crack of breaking bone.
She’s hit time and again by painfully pregnant words
She’s bloodied by looks and acts
dripping with criticism, sarcasm
and reduced to nothing by his nonchalant attitude

She can’t count her body’s aches and pains.
She can no longer even think straight.
She’s almost broken by the burden she bears
wondering how his anger became her load.

What was once hers is in his hands
Her confidence is so threadbare
she can’t meet her childrens’ eyes.
Day in day out, she’s abused,
played with and discarded like an angry child’s toy

Many times she packed up, then unpacked her bags
She has held her children’s hands,
walked out, walked right back in.
Today she’s determined to leave
Today, she leaves
Or
Today, she dies

akinyi © Nov 26 2007