I returned home on a Friday,

shaken and stirred

my skinny margarita body

was only a shell of what it used to be.

150 to 124.

I sat in different offices

like flipping through pages of a picture book,

but my story would not end in smiles,

instead a pen in my hand

and questions about if he raped me on every page.

The days passed like pity stares.

long and endless,

which is how I felt about a lot of things

like showering

or maintaining conversation.

The one thing they don't tell you about emotional abuse

is the way you will still wake up

wondering how to please him

or if you pissed him off in your sleep.

You will clutch a cup of coffee

at two in the morning

the same way you used to beg his hand

to stay in yours.

It was your fault anyway.

You know sleep

the way you knew his love,

rarely

and only when you deserved it.

I stayed awake nights

convincing myself that being home was

temporary.

He will come get me

handcuff me

and take me back to prison.

The bounty over my head was sealed with

a wedding ring

that felt more like an anchor than love.

Beauty is pain,

but there was nothing beautiful about the way

he stripped away the most important part about me.

I had never been one for flowers

until I realized I wasn't good enough for them.

I had forgotten how to eat.

Like spoons and forks where weapons

used against my stomach

I had never been truly scared

until my food was prepared out of sight

and handed over to me

like they were chanting for me to

drink the Kool-Aid.

And I couldn't.

I can't wait until the day I forget

how is hands felt around this waist,

tight enough to push through layers of my skin

as if he was branding me

his.

He used my family as pawns

as if they were a game of chess

He taught me how to play,

I guess he didn't see it coming.

as he prepared his next move

the queen slipped off the bored.

Checkmate.