I sit here, now,
on my porch faraway from that place that I had called home,
away from the hate,
pain,
and depression that had festered inside me.

But I sit here,
also faraway,
from the smell of the sweet honeysuckle
that would grew savagely on the wooden fence.

I sit faraway from the shimmering dew
that I so loved when laying out in the open country
for acres and acres that was my backyard.

I sit faraway from the luminous sky
that had so often taken me as a lover would in its never-ending arms.

I sit here in Long Island, New York
with a husband and no children to fill my ears.
I say now to myself,
a woman of twenty
that I only ran from one hell
to become so trapped within another.

Chad.

That’s his name. My husband.
We ran away together when I was seventeen
to New York so we could become husband and wife.

How was I to know that life would turn out like this?

I bet your asking yourself, “Does he beat her?”
No.

No. He doesn’t beat me. He wouldn’t dare.

But instead he does something else;
he hurts me, but in my heart.
Just like my daddy did.

I never thought that I could love someone so much as I love Chad.
Every time I see him
I can feel my heart skip a beat.
Its as if I were seventeen again when we first meet.