http://www.pulsehead.com/581/pHlash%20pHiction%20Contest%2009%3A%20ROUND%201
A Comfortable Burden
As I sit here I know my jaw is broken. I have had so many broken bones, snapped like twigs and fractured like glass, I just know. 206 bones and I think, in a few years, I will have broken them all. Or maybe not.
This is the limbo period. The worse is over now, I am done with, as blood gushes from my ear and scalp, I know I am safe. The children are asleep on the corner lounge and the large sofa is pulled up over the door. He'll be passed out shortly anyway. Come morning it's crunch time. Will he go, will he stay? Will I forgive him, will I leave?
Chances are we'll stick together. See, neither of us has the confidence to walk away, it's all talk, and the whole fucked up cycle will repeat again.
It's not so bad, I suppose. It only happens once every few months. That is good odds, right? The rest of the time we're fine. We just gloss over the cracks and piece lifes fragments together the way a child forces jigsaw puzzle shapes to fit when they don't quite match.
When it's good, we can even trick ourselves into believing, for a short while at least, that we are in love. Or something close.
My hair is stained with red and brown now and I think if I tried to speak I couldn't. There is blood collecting my my mouth, it's warm and tastes like pennies. How do I know what pennies taste like? I have no idea. I can't really think straight, I am just typing whatever comes into my once pretty head.
He called me fat. I am not fat. He hasn't even noticed I stopped eating two months ago. It's not even about size anymore, it's about control. What I consume is the one thing I have complete say over, it's all mine. Everything else he orders, commands, but this belongs to me.
I have seen hatred and it's ugly. Just minutes ago it spat in my face, pinning me down, tormenting me with words I can't repeat. Sometimes I dream of escaping, I think about France and the seaside and just being free in the sunshine, happy. But I haven't got the guts. Pathetic, isn't it? But it'll be ok by morning. I'll go back to my cosy life, with nice things and money to spare and for a while I might even be content. I'll explain the broken jaw away as some cliche act of clumsiness and even laugh about it, how silly I am, how I lack any grace. I'll throw this blood stained robe away and every trace of what happened will be removed, except what is inside my head.
Because it replays on a loop forever, you know? And as I sit here typing oh so quietly and convincing myself I am doing it for the kids I know I am a fool and really no better than him. I stay for me, because I think I am no better than what this shitty life has to offer. It's me who chooses this situation, me who refuses to change and it's for that I am most sorry. And it's for that reason, I deserve what I get.
Word count 509
rating: 19
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