I Watch Him Sleeping

This man that I've loved since the age of seventeen. He is my first love and the only man that I've been with. I'm twenty-seven but look much older due to constant stress that he has me in. This man who claims to love me in return and says he only beats me because he wants me to know he cares. If he didn't beat me every once in awhile I would get out of line; maybe even become disrespectful to him. After ten years of being together we aren't a married couple. His reason being that we don't need a piece of paper to prove our love for one another. We don't have any children, because he can't stop beating me even when I'm pregnant. After the second time I got on birth control and he just seems to think that I can no longer get pregnant. Another reason for him to beat on me.

My friends have seen the cuts and bruises and tell me that one day he's going to put me six feet under. I assure them that he would never go that far. I provoke him by saying or doing things that I shouldn't. The look of shame that they have on their face makes me feel like a huge disappointment to them. Their love is genuine and unconditional, because they never give up on me. I am an only child and I lost both my parents when I was fifteen. My mother was abused by my father on a daily basis, but he never hurt me.

A few days before my sixteenth birthday he took a few pills and had a bottle of vodka. He was so messed up that night and of course he started to beat on my mother. When he walked out the door we thought he had left to get more alcohol, but he went to the trunk and returned with a crowbar. He beat my mother to death that night, then shot himself in the head.

I watch him sleeping
I look down at the butcher knife in my hand

When I looked in the mirror no longer than five minutes ago, I see a black eye and a busted lower lip. I can feel it swelling up as I stand here figuring out where I should enter the knife on his body. This is the only out for me. I known if I leave he will just find me and I'll come back to him as I've done numerous times before. If he were dead my life could begin again. If he were dead I would regain my freedom. Prison. I would go to prison for sure if I follow through with this. Not only will his life be over, but mine would be as well. Living to die. Surely I would get the death penalty; a life sentence might be a possibility.

I watch him sleeping
I look down at the butcher knife in my hand
I walk over to his side of the bed

He rolls over and I get startled, thinking he may wake up. Him and Jack had a play date this evening, and he drank drank drank until Jack was all gone. He didn't like dinner because it was too salty. There went the first slap right across my face; somehow I managed to keep my footing. Apparently he wasn't satisfied with this, so he pushed me to the floor and gave me a couple of kicks. I learned not to beg him to stop because this only made him angrier. After a few minutes he got tired and went to bed, but not before lying next to me on the floor and giving me a kiss goodnight.

The abuse ends tonight - one way or another!

I watch him sleeping
I look down at the butcher knife in my hand
I put it back in the kitchen drawer
I grab the car keys
I leave

Every woman should have a little money stashed away just in case. Over the years I managed to save $7,000. I don't know where I'm headed, but anywhere is better than the hell I've escaped from.