The first time he calls you a name, a horrible name that you thought only middle school bullies would use to define you– swallow your love for him. Digest it. Don’t let it come back up. But I know it’s not that easy. I wish it was that easy.

You have broken your back carrying around his paperweights and you’re not going to throw it out over some silly word. You will absorb it. You will memorize the way it feels when it rings in your ears that night. When he is snoring beside you, you will whisper it to yourself to see how it feels on your tongue. You’ll wonder if it tasted like poison to him too. You will say it until it doesn’t taste so bitter. Until it doesn’t sound so much like nails-on-a-chalkboard to your ears. The next time he calls you it, you will hardly flinch.

The first time his fist kisses the flesh that your mother kissed when you were a child– you will cry. One part because of the pain, three parts because of the shock. You will leave, run to the bathroom, mascara stain the tile. You have read about abusive relationships, you swore it would never be you. On your way out the front door, suitcase packed, he will fall to his knees, the floorboards will creak, he will apologize.. and you will forgive him.

It snowballs from there. It’s not that big of a leap from a black eye, to a bruised lip, to a swollen face, to a broken heart, to falling apart. You won’t remember the original complexion of your skin-tone. You will become an expert at using makeup to hide bruises. Purple will become your new favourite colour, you will wear it on your skin every day. You will begin mistaking the breaking of bones for ‘I love you’s.

He will break your wrists and you will apologize the next day that you can’t help him lift the boxspring out of the bedroom because he doesn’t want to sleep with you anymore. He will rename you curse words and you’ll begin to respond as if they were your birth given name. He will mutter empty ‘sorry’s into your ears until it is the only word you remember how to say. He will turn your collarbones into soup bowls when you become too weak to wash the dishes. He will take your skin and fold it in on itself. Like a black hole, swallowing anything that gets too close. He will use this as an excuse not to kiss you anymore. He will lock you in the basement until your knuckles get bloody from banging, until your throat dries to sandpaper. Until your stomach screams for food. You’ll spend your last few hours in the abandoned guest room, making and remaking the bedspread. Flipping through photo albums trying to pinpoint the moment when everything went south.

Your last breath will be wasted on his name. It wasn’t supposed to be this way.