Photo by kellyishmael on MorgueFile
Content Warning: This piece explores themes of domestic violence, abuse, miscarriage, and trauma in a raw and unfiltered manner. Reader discretion is strongly advised.
He’s lying on his back, at the edge of the bed, naked feet prompted on the floor. The beer bottle that started by resting at his feet will soon end up smashed against the wall. I will leap back with a shriek. When the golden liquid runs down to pool against the cedarwood, we will start our weekly routine.
In two minutes, he'll pass out, but not before calling me a whore. Yes, I’m cheating, and he is suffering.
It’s Monday morning and the tab at the bar runs long and dry. 7am he burst through our home and stopped to look at me. I lay on the couch waiting for him. He locked the door to keep me inside, and grabbed the dog resting by my feet.
'Look at the bitch,' he muttered with slurred words, 'I'd rather suck on a bottle of beer than touch that.'
He does it often; I have no choice.
No key to open doors, no strength to sit up straight and face it again, yet I do. And here I am, the bottle flying, my body leaping, his brain shutting down into what I can only hope is a dead man's sleep.
The whore moves to sit in the dark at the kitchen table, drinking boiling hot coffee he so courteously brought home. There is no electricity; the paycheck was left at the bar 4 days ago, and there are still another 25 days for the next one to roll in.
This isn’t a story, certainly not the fairytale she imagined once. It’s also not just a bad dream. In 10 hours or so, he will scream her name, drag her to the bed and take what is his by right. His whore, a broken, soulless body to possess.
I gravitate, round and round through the apartment, from table to couch, not the bed, never the bed. The bedroom is his kingdom, I am a slave.
His phone rings incessantly, though I’m not allowed to touch it. I shake his unconscious body from what I can only hope is a safe distance, to no avail. I pick up the receptor.
'Hello?'
His aunt asks if he’s home. I whisper a reluctant yes, followed by her curt explanation. He’d been drinking with her husband at the bar until it closed at 1am. Except he had come home at 7am.
I put down the phone. This was also not the first time.
My hands run in circles atop a round, hollow belly with an exasperated sigh. I can still feel the weight of his hands around my throat, gripping tightly like anacondas. I was the whore slammed against the white walls, then hurled towards the desk.
There was blood, so much blood on the floor.
I pace back and forth. The food splattered across the living room once sat on two plates. The table was flipped against the window at a weird angle that my mind can no longer comprehend.
My fingers work as quickly as they can to clean up before he resurrects, knees on the floor to pick up the pieces of my dignity. I weep.
It doesn’t take long for that creaking sound to announce movement from within his lair. He stomps towards the kitchen demanding breakfast and doesn’t take no for an answer. The weeping whore ceases her cleaning chores to mend his broken heart and fill his swollen stomach. The knife is in her hand, but could just as easily be in his gut.
'Are you going to work?'
'No.'
That’s that. One more day when he shrieks his responsibilities to drink. Except today I get to leave the house, rare occasion, his hand on my arm, off to his aunt's house.
This isn’t your happy, happy visit.
It’s a way to show to the world that we are still happy and in love.
I’m a bird sitting on a roost, watching as his aunt's friend runs her hand through his auburn curls, her brown eyes on my green ones, and exclaims, 'Take good care of my boy'.
I’m a whore, so I nod and said yes. I’ll take good care of her boy.
It’s not a secret, not anymore. He does it often, then comes home slurring his descriptive words of how, and when things happen. Her kitchen, her bathroom, her bedroom, every touch in detail, every orgasm a victory. They’ve been circling her house countless times over the years.
The whore grew an outer shell and no longer feels for his tales. She only listens because the door is locked, and there is no key to exit the third floor apartment on the right, facing the deserted gas station.
He’s on his knees again.
Begging, pleading, this is another routine, after weeping on the phone to his family about how much he misses them, he traps my feet in a tight hug, pleading, then begs me to never leave him. I don’t. I can’t. I have no key.
In 20 minutes or so, he will leave again, drink himself to oblivion and return to empty himself in me. I will still be utterly empty.
The whore will wait, then serve him as the dessert. There is no end, not a happy one, not a sad one either. There is only her, 1836 days captive to a man who swore to love her, and the swollen wooden planks shifting in the bedroom, in complete disrepair.
I sit on the floor. Never again.
His clothes out the window, the remaining of his belongings by the door. The whore is tired, oh, so tired. Empty round belly, no one to ever hold, only fragmented memories of what can never be.
He will return, beg once more. A six year long habit.
Not this time.
10 am, I hurl him down the stairs, my hands on his puffed chest, blood on the steps. The door closes, but this time the key is in my hand.
The whore won’t take him back.
Never again, never again. Never.
Nevermore.
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Art has a way of finding its people.
Just this morning, I was thinking about how disconnected I’ve felt from art lately—how rare it is to find something that truly makes me feel. Maybe it’s the sheer volume of content we consume, numbing us little by little.
Then I read this. Goosebumps. I practically scrambled to find the full post, and I was not disappointed.
SPOILERS AHEAD
The raw honesty, the weight of every word—it’s devastating and powerful in equal measure. The cyclical nature of abuse, the quiet suffocation of captivity, the slow erosion of self, all laid bare with unflinching prose.
By the end, there’s defiance. There’s freedom. There’s never again.
Thank you for sharing something so harrowing, so beautifully written, and so deeply human.