1.16.12.838.535.

The bones will shatter,

Her soul the result of batter.

There are no longer days, only nights.

Times when her bruises are away

From her neighbor’s sights.

Her screams reaching only

Sleeping ears.

No one awakens for their lives

Have stopped.

Life no longer goes on,

Time a distant memory.

The sky is always dark and

The door is always locked.

The blinds stay

Down and the phone never rings.

She has done this to herself;

This is her world.

His hand strikes for she

Allows it to move.

All else in her world

Has lost motion, all else

Is frozen in time.

All but his hand.

She allows him to

Live and thrive because it is

All she knows, what she needs to

Survive.

All she knows is the hand.

Her whole life the hand has been

Attached to a different contender;

Mother, father, and now lover.

She’ll take the pain for it’s

Inevitable; the only way.

She’ll take the hand anyway

It comes.

Just as long as she can

Be touched.

He is not the first to raise

His hand to her, just the first

To give her a wedding band.

Till death do you part.

Till the day her heart forgets to start.