I just need someone to listen
I lay here beside you,
It's not quite 9:00pm.
You are long gone,
Absorbed by the alcohol.
Tonight, like every other,
I cooked for you.
When you were hungry after dinner,
I cooked again.
I did your laundry for work tomorrow.
I cleaned the house.
All the while,
You became consumed.
The alcohol takes my husband and leaves behind someone I cannot recognize.
I never know how much you drink, unless I count the bottles.
When I saw you fading into that blackened place tonight,
Laying on the bed, muttering unintelligibly,
I made a mistake.
I wanted to love you.
I leaned across the bed and I kissed your face,
And I felt the sharp jolt of your hands hitting my sides.
That did not hurt nearly as much as when I heard you say,
"Get the f@!# off me!"
I often wonder why you asked me to marry you.
I wonder why I love you so much when I lay here, unable to sleep because I feel so unloved.
I never imagined this being my life.
I thought that you would love me,
Care for me, want me to follow my dreams and to feel safe.
Yesterday when you screamed at me in the car,
You told me I must want you to feel miserable.
You said that I am not a part of your family.
You told me that I don't listen to you.
You told me I was useless.
Why do I stay?
Why do I tell myself I can bring out the best in you?
Why have you made leaving so difficult when you don't want me?
It's so difficult to understand someone who hurts me this way, then who makes me so afraid to leave.
I feel like a burden, but I used to feel like you loved me.
Part of me knows that it isn't my fault, but all the times you've told me it was got to me.
I can't begin to explain what's happened to me.
My ambitions, my creativity, I don't know when I lost it.
I'd imagine it's when I lost hope.
When I resigned myself to tucking my face into my coat and wishing I could disappear while you screamed at me and threw things at me.
When I started feeling sick just standing up for myself, because it felt like asking to be hit.
I know that so much of what you hurt me for wasn't my fault.
I guess the hard part is knowing that it's my fault I stayed.
It's my fault I'm not even 25 and it feels like it's all over and there's no way out.
I keep telling myself you're getting better.
I know in the meantime, I'm losing myself.
I write these poems so I don't go insane.
I have no one to tell,
When try to tell him it hurt, I am accused of guilt tripping.
I feel so alone.
Whoever reads this, thank you. I needed you.
Copyright © Jess Marlo | Year Posted 2024
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