she ties her ******* thick knot so he can’t **** on it.
she bites the inside of her cheek until she tastes rust, until he finishes and collapses in a post-****** nap.
she is forced to rise after her body’s beating, juggle his child, do the dishes, start boiling the water, prepare his dinner, crack open a beer, unscrew the anti-freeze and pour just enough all with one hand and all before he wakes.
he tells her to sweep the floor but the dust pads her footsteps so she doesn’t wake him and she’s happiest when he’s asleep.
he’s happiest when he has something to complain about, something to force himself into, some cavity to cram in the name of pleasure.
women are wild horses grazing in forgotten fields, unrequited and unchained beauty admired only by the sun.
women are the lone wolves, leading from behind.
women are the taste of freedom ****** out by a man with hands around her neck and hot breath in her ear asking if she likes it, asking if she wants it harder.
women are the smell of iron and sticky fingerprints, painting red-black odes into cotton canvases, where society can’t stipple or staunch the flow of freedom.
women are mothers before birth to unruly grab-me-a-beer-babe men tossing ***** clothes to a fresh mopped floor and telling her the place is a pit.
women are anger buried beneath flesh, a bubbling riot up and out of their mouths in the form of what they call crazy and what we call just plain tired.
she hands him his beer, smiles as she adjusts the baby.
here, she says, you deserved it.
she tastes those words, the way they weigh heavily on her tongue like stones tossed into a lake to drown.
she tastes those words, the same words he said to her the first time he painted her eye a pretty bruise-blue, pulled her hair like reigns like he actually believed he could control how she built herself.