How can two insignificant words, hold such weight.

You could probably pass it, and never even notice.

My body knows when I’m near it without even looking.

My heart quickens, I begin to panic.

I hold my breath and squeeze my eyes shut

until I’m past the block of the anchor inn.

As hard as I try, I can never forget that day.

The flicking sound of your lighter.

The cigarette smoke, the ashes.

The smell of your crack pipe burning.

Your paranoid eyes, darting back and forth.

The constant pacing,

glancing through the peephole.

Sitting there watching you unfold before me.

Looking into your eyes and seeing nothing but darkness.

And that was the first time I met your monster.

Your hands at my throat,

your fists at my face,

pounding on my body

Hour after hour.

Pleading, begging you to stop.

But you couldn’t hear me,

your demons completely took over.

The tears eventually stopped flowing,

my body became completely numb,

laying there lifeless on the carpet

surrendering to whatever was to come,

waiting for you to take it too far

thinking off all the things I never got to do.

Things I may never get to do.

But then you just stopped,

exhausted, out of breath.

Standing over me, wiping the sweat off your face.

Looking down at me, a sense of accomplishment.

As if I had learned my lesson,

of a game that was only real inside your head.

By the time you were through with me,

the mattress was no longer on the bed frame.

Blood on the floor, the walls.

My body already black with bruises.

My face swollen from your fists.

Part of me died in that room, at the anchor inn,

but that was only the beginning.