You don’t own this home, but you do.

Whether in it or missing from it,

After a bout of silent, savage, hissing,

I can be found frozen, afraid, sitting,

Not knowing what to do next,

Shocked, where’d the bliss go?

There never was much kissing.

I hate you,

I’m glad that you are dead,

I’m still shocked what you did to me

And the little pieces you left

camped in my head.

If I ask what went wrong,

I recall the first time you got the hump,

Less than 6 months in

And suddenly I couldn’t get in.

The door didn’t answer,

For days and days,

I called, knocked, tried and cried.

If this wasn’t a red flag

Let’s not cast the ashtray in Mexico aside,

Even earlier in the romance,

Large, overflowing with cigarettes and water

Viciously thrown over me,

Punishment for imaginary sin.

A lamb to the slaughter I must have bin.

When YOU decided you were ready,

Opened the door, we were still going steady,

No explanation, a sprinkling of blame,

The pattern of things to come,

Silence, fear, confusion,

Always the same,

We fight, you ignore me or leave,

Eventually you decree it’s concluded

I let it go that you won’t talk,

I accept it, succumbing, it’s been too painful,

Grateful to be released from my prison

Though deep down I know it’s baneful.

Your aggression increased in time

And my fear subdued mine.

I used to scream, cry, shout,

That you wouldn’t talk about it, drove me wild,

But it was my fault, you left me no doubt.

Discussion, who did what didn’t matter,

“We carry on with positive action” you’d say

But to you that meant distance and silence for days.

My heart now readily imploding,

Your words, your acts, your silent exploding,

All caused by me ap-par-ent-ly,

Your neglect of me, caused by my neglect of you you say,

Your rage, caused by my egoism.

Couldn’t see then, I’d bedded a politician

Our fractured relationship on my shoulders,

The only answer was submission.

Your monstrous face, when seething, so frightening,

The games you played with my head,

Worse than a good hiding.

I called the police one day, in the terror of your gaslighting,

“Sorry old bill for your trouble” the charming Narcissist said,

“She’s mentally ill, it’s really a struggle, I’ll try and put her to bed”.

Mentally ill I’d lived alone plenty before, doing ok, finding my way,

But you chipped at my confidence asserting so much of me was wrong,

You were supporting me to become a higher being,

Teaching me from your position on the ceiling.

More often you looked like the devil

Especially when drunk

But you were sober, millimetres from my face, when you spat

“you’re a CUNT, you’re a CUNT, you’re a CUNT”.

Anytime I was thinking of leaving,

You’d pull my illness from your sleeve.

“I’ll fight for our child, you’ll not get her”

“You’re too crazy, too wild”

“they wont believe you, they’ll believe me”

“Not to mention all I do for you, you need me”.

Alternatively, Mr Jekyll would find a way through,

Bombard me with love, good times like we used too.

The relationship I held onto to recreate

Why I stayed through insanity and profanity.

There was hope. If I can just soften him.

If I can just be the better wife he wants.

Through your sneers, the loneliness, the nightly fears.

As you rolled over in bed

Sickness in my stomach like lead

Your appetite demanded to be fed.

When you got Cancer, you needed me

So signs of your humanity appeared.

I’m good at caring so I cared for you.

My love seemed to survive all those years.

And the past receeded amongst the tears.

I grieved you, mourned you,

with a sorrow you couldn’t borrow,

On a pedestal you became

Almost holy in name.

Even at the end, you almost had me with your game.

Eventually, an explosion of the memory,

A violent paresthesia of sorts,

Shattered my “Abuse Amnesia”

Drowned me in memories, so distraught

Left urgently needing an analgesia.

The real sorrow now,

Not your death but my own,

Awakened to my suffering

And the me that got lost

Realising my soul mate was not the one I got

(How did I not see that?)

Have to put myself back together

Feels like I’ll be trying to understand your kind forever.

I have hate for what you said and did

The fakery bewilders me

But sometimes I can find empathy,

Despite your twisted mind.

You must also have met an abusive hand

To become the debauchee,

I mistook

For a really cool guy.