He cries, tells her it's the last time.
Cherry lips and violet eyes,
She lies because she's so broken
She can't remember how it felt to be whole.
A boy too small to fight,
Though that doesn't stop him from trying;
A little girl who will never know that love doesn't include bruises and broken bones.
She could leave,
But she knows he'd find her as he has so many times,
Wandering the highway somewhere between the 5th and 9th time
She ponders whether it hurts worse to live or die.
Her baby in her arms and one trailing behind,
A shotgun aimed between her eyes,
She'll climb inside his old blue pickup truck,
Which is somehow colder than the October night.

She hears the whispers—
Illegal. Dependent. Brainless.
Can they not see their own reflection in her tired eyes
And realize that if the stars aligned differently,
They could have been the one wearing sweaters in the summer
And sunglasses in the grocery store?
As she pushes the shopping cart home,
She says a silent prayer that he'll be gone,
But he never is.
When her nose bleeds on the tile
She no longer cries,
Just syncs the pounding in her head with her heartbeat, screaming,
It's over. It's over. It's over. It's—