GRAVE love GRAVE

Blood blister broken.

Now, leave no token,

of the love we’d said we’d share,

as the alcohol run away your care.

Lawn mover blades bent and bloodied.

No preparation comes in the materials I studied –

only fear, as you stand in front of the freezer,

yelling, discarding, probing with machete not tweezer.

Your mantra, an insult, slurring BITCH, BITCH, BITCH.

My crying, a wasted effort, brings no sympathy, no twitch.

Reflexes and reaction time Sloed in gin,

hurrying me out the door undressed, as if personal hygiene was vanity, a sin.

Says I’m fat and stupid, a PIG.

Says I deserve it, each attack, each dig.

Says it is I that’s wrong and he who’s right.

So, I don’t know each evening if I’m coming home to a fight,

or if he’ll be passed out or disappeared.

Yet he claims it’s me who’s weird.

I’m a disappointment, a boring COW or HAG.

And with each insult over my head he tightens the bag.

I am thinking I will asphyxiate

and drown in the hot tears made from his hate.

What happened to my love?

Battered and trod upon, a thread-bare rug.

There is no help, no hope coming from above,

so push me below and bury me in the grave that my love dug.