You smelled of stale beer and musty basements,
And soon that smell became the only one I knew.
You drank until you couldn't remember your own name,
And screamed mine until your voice resonated off the walls.
You smoked until the clouds around you became heavier than your crushing guilt,
And suffocated.

Like a raging wildfire,
Nothing touched by you would ever return whole.
You ripped through childhoods,
Burning holes in inccocent lives,
Setting ablaze all that was once pure.

Like a sunken ship in the ocean,
I was pulled under by your grasp
And swallowed whole.

And I believed you.
That what I wanted to be was unattainable.
Once a lioness-
Fierce, unafraid, still strong when pushed beyond her limits;
I became a small kitten-
Meek, cautious, running at the first sign of danger.

I believed you,
When you said I deserved it,
That it was my fault,
And that nothing mattered, 
Because I'd never have the strength to fight back.

Then the day came,
When seeing blue and purple hand-prints on my body became abnormal to me,
And realized,
I could.