Hand pressed to the wall,
throat tight, bruised, strangled sounds.
A strangers stale breath floods my senses,
stinging eyes, filling nose,
trousers torn, skin exposed.
Blunt pain splitting me as he mutters,
“you know you want this,”
in hisses hot and dark,
as my tears run, silent streaks on bruised cheeks.

“Get out,” he spits, throwing me out,
jeans soaked, zip broken,
feeling the cold, the clammy stain,
the sickening trace that seeps through.
I stagger to the shower, tile cold under me,
scrubbing skin raw, scrubbing past flesh,
scraping blood into porcelain,
trying to wash what won’t come clean.
Water chills as boyfriend bangs on the door,
demanding where I was,
I only went shopping.

Weeks go by, then the invisible knife,
digging, tearing, leaving me bent,
life flowing away down the toilet.
My mother comes as blood still pools,
tries to understand,
“Whore,” she mutters,
“you must have led him on, like a bitch on heat.”
And the man I’m supposed to marry,
calls me the same, locks the door,
a sentence in his silence,
leaving me to the hunger, the hollow.

Days later, he returns,
unlocks the door, says nothing,
drives away for good.
I pull myself up, leaving the empty behind,
walking away with nothing
but the pieces of a stranger,
and the memory of a life I once carried,
now lost in blood and cold water.

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