My voice shrank and my entire body sclerosed to stone
when you lifted a hand because I was never sure
if this time would be the time
you took it too far.
The air left my alveoli, travelled through my bronchioles, trachea,
and out through my clenched teeth as you walked out the door,
safe to escape from my lungs because fear
had paralyzed my diaphragm and
overstimulated my amygdala.
It was always a vicious cycle:
My limbic system remembered the monster that escaped your ribcage
when the rage inside that was instilled in you to win wars
that was never fully extinguished came through
yet the same system processed the love I felt
when you played peek-a-boo with my niece on the grass;
even my brain wasn’t sure what we wanted.
Four weeks had passed since:
I said goodbye to our cat because he was yours now,
I took the trinkets I had scattered to make it our home
rather than your place where I stayed,
I erased sloppy alcohol-kissed love notes from the whiteboard
where I wrote the therapy reminders you ignored.
My mailbox filled with emails riddled with depression and
post-traumatic stress and worry manifested as a knot in my throat
that made it impossible to breathe so I searched for any spare key
and drove the twenty-seven miles to ensure your safety.
I grasped the doorknob hard enough to trigger Pacinian corpuscles
throughout my skin, terrified of what was just beyond the threshold.