Burgundy.

Closed doors;

the stagnant sound of silence echoes

in the aftermath of yet another

“it won’t happen again.”

He can smell the burgundy bruises on her taut shiny vulnerability,

And his nostrils don’t even flinch

His eyelids don’t even blink

His words don’t even sink into her flesh any more.

Remorse written all over his face

With a pen whose ink had dried up

Shriveled and died

Like the trust he had once earned

Through gentle pen strokes;

A romance novel

Printed, published,

left to gather dust as a doorstop to the children’s bedroom.

Resume normality

It’s all a game of causality

She looked at him in just the wrong way

At just the wrong time

It’s fine it’s all fine

She doesn’t want to hear

Her mother chime in with an ‘I told you so’.

No, she would rather remain bound by the chains of his name

And hold fireflies up to his good side

In the public eye.

She would rather die.

She would rather live in case the lie

Stuttered enough times becomes the truth.

“It won’t happen again.”