I never give him a name in my poems.
He is always “Him”,
Always a personification of a
Smothering darkness closing in.
On a bad day
I see nothing but black.
On a good day
He is a dim border
Making it only a little harder to see.

On a dim day
I can wake up and take a shower.
I can present my naked body to myself.
I am not a Renaissance painting.
I am not pink and soft,
I do not have flowing blonde hair
Tumbling down my back,
But he still picked me to play his
Mona Lisa smile.

On a dim day
I can read on the bus.
I can ignore the *** holes,
The bumps in the road that remind me of my skin.
The skin that was touched and burned,
That scraped against the ridges of his fingerprints.

On a dark day
I take more than the recommended amount of pain killers.
On a dark day
My spine curves into the golden ratio,
The perfect submissive pose.
On a dark day
His hands are my hands,
Slippery with butter and calloused from his car.
On a dark day
I am a gutted museum of trauma.
I am cigarette ashes.
I am a tongue tied convulsing mess.

On a dark day
I am fifteen again with cracked collarbones.
On a dim day
I can’t even muster up enough thanks
That he left me alive.