The most foreign of my memories are also the happiest. Each day is like I’m descending a ladder, rung by rung, until I reach the barren nothingness of my heart, or maybe at the root of my heart lays you; after all you are at the root of my nightmares. No matter what I do, your effect doesn’t leave me; your scars penetrate everything I’m trying so hard to hold onto.

Every time a brisk November wind scratches at my face, causing my features to become numb, my mind drifts back to the day I met you. I can recall not finding you attractive or intriguing in the least. They say to trust your first instincts, perhaps sometimes this is the wrong advice, but in this case, if I had walked away everything might be a fragile balance of okay. Arrogantly, he slipped his arm around my waist, his grip feeling immensely right, as though every question in the world was simultaneously solved. He was funny and as the November winds continued to eat away at my face, I laughed; blissfully unaware of the future.

It started with one hit, a slap across my cheek, the first of my scar collection. My mouth shut tightly waiting for his words of redemption. Without a word, he slipped his arms around me, the tears slipping down my cheeks; hot, while suddenly everything else in the world, even his heavenly grip became cold.

My mind was buzzing, every thought it’s own tornado, ripping across my brain. The bed was occupied by him as well as me; his presence loathed by me, as I attempted to sleep while in the fetal position, attempted to conquer the pain of the latest attack on my sanity, on my love. Simply, our love would never be the same; for there was a stranger sleeping next to me, a stranger hitting me; my enemy pretending to love me.

He wouldn’t hurt me anymore. Examining myself in the mirror, I could see all the bruises; black, blue, yellow, purple, and disgusting shades of green. The old jagged cuts wrapped around my body, now fresh blood covered me; not mine. Soon enough my life would be over. Right now, I was truly safe, curled in the corner under the sink; his dead body splayed across from my; deadly knife in my shaking hand.