I wipe his blood from off of my walls. I squeeze my rag and the lightly colored water falls back into the sudsy bucket. I scrub the wall, watching the red run down, affixing to the grain of my wood floor. I’ll have to clean my floor now, wiping away the scent, the trace of him and what he has made of me. I wipe away the guilt, scrub away the shame. He’s made me ashamed. He’s made me hateful. God knows I used to be loving! Remember God, how loving I used to be? Remember how easily I used to smile and how freely I used to tell a joke? Remember how quickly I loved? How readily I loved him, eager to receive him.
Oblivious to his obsession, control and manipulation, I ignored his abuse, perceiving it as love taps. The harder the punch, the more he loved me. The louder the shout, the more passionate our love would be. He was all I had, at least I thought he was - I think he was. Well, I was sure he was. He had to be, there was nobody else. Why else would I be so naively forgiving and pathetically submissive? His kisses went from whipped cream coated strawberries to battery acid. I take the snow white mop, plunge it in the red colored, soapy water and clean my wood floor.
I mop him away, hoping that the lemon fresh cleaning liquid will mask the scent of his rawness. The cops’ll be here soon. They know. I told them. They’ve been here before, several times before. They pulled him off of me, stopped his hands from choking me, and kept his manhood from raping me, along with his gun from shooting me. They know him. They know us. They told him to stay away, he didn’t listen. I loved his brown eyes. Clean white eyeballs surrounded those pretty brown eyes. Those eyes smiled at me. I prayed that our babies would have those pretty brown eyes. The cops are coming. They told him to stay away. They told me to move on. I didn’t listen. I couldn’t. How could I leave those pretty brown eyes that always seemed to smile at me? Those eyes reminded me of who I loved, they convinced me that the Beast was just a temporary visitor. It’ll be gone soon. Soon It’ll leave me and my baby alone and I could stare into those pretty brown eyes and build a future of happiness in their smile.
The cops are coming, I hear the sirens. They didn’t take that long. They bust through my door and look at him, and then they look at me. They warned us this would happen. The two approach me. I remember the face of the shorter one. He comes to take me away, to convict and condemn me. They don’t even understand and probably won’t even believe that I didn’t kill him. He killed me! With the bite of the Beast, he contaminated me, slowly making me like him. He killed himself when he killed me. He ended his life when he took mine. I didn’t mean to do it. I didn’t want to do it. But the Beast would have done it. It told me that It would have killed me. It told me that It hated me, so I killed It.
It invaded me and took me over like an antibody, terminal like a disease. The Beast took over my blood, feeding hate into my brain; prompting me, justifying me. It tempted me to do things I would never have done. I wouldn’t have had the nerve. I would have loved with patience, waiting for my pretty brown eyes to come back to me and love me once again. But, he passed the Beast on to me and It took over my senses and sanity. He passed the curse on to me; I could see it in his eyes before I pulled the trigger. I saw his fear. Pretty brown eyes trembled instead of smiled. He knew it. He knew that I was contaminated, and that I’d never back down because the Beast never rests. He knew it was his fate, he couldn’t escape it, and so he had to welcome it. He did it; he passed it on to me! The Beast bit me and tainted me, marking me forever! They’ll never understand. They’ll hate me! They’ll say I’m crazy. But, they didn’t live with the Beast. They didn’t share Its home or lay with It in bed. They didn’t have to kiss It or make love to It. They didn’t feel Its punches, hear Its threats, or mend the wounds that It caused! They don’t know the Beast, so they’ll never understand. And, they’ll never truly know me because the Beast still lives.
