Desperate control

This is a poem I wrote about the abuse I endured in my last relationship.

I used to think that leaving was locked away in a land i could never reach.
That there was a wall so wide that I couldn't even imagine what sunlight felt like on the other side.

I told myself I was helping him by holding on.
That may be if I just loved louder and spoke softer and moved smaller that he would stop shattering me into shards so sharp that I could barely even recognize my own reflection.
I thought I was being good to him, a giver, a guardian of his brokenness.

I thought loyalty meant lingering in the fire,
Letting it lick my skin until I was raw.
I told Myself he needs me, hes hurting, but he will heal.

But the truth?

Every day I stayed in stamped my silence into stone.
Every bruise i buried, every apology i absorbed
Every moment I convinced myself "it wasn't that bad" was another brick in the barrier that I was building around my own freedom.
And God it hurt to stay.

It wasn't just the shouts, the neglect, the suffocating in silence.
Its the constant shrinking.
Its the way that you learn to breath barely, smile smaller and stand still so that maybe he won't see you long enough to strike again.
I was stuck in the mindset of, "he loves me"
Even if his way of conveying love was through his punches and his screams.

He would tell me that his favorite thing to do was kiss me. Kiss my neck.
He especially loved my neck When it was caught between his hands.
I flinched at every move he made
I ate up every apology he fed me even knowing he wouldn't change.

I was like a possession
He touched me like a promise but he did, he held me like a possession.
Every "i love you" came wrapped in conditions.
Quiet rules I did not notice until I could not breathe without breaking one.
I kept thinking that if im a little quieter,
If i had shrunken my needs and folded myself small enough that maybe he would stop confusing control with care.

But loving him felt like living in a storm that apologized between lightning strikes.
And I called it passion because calling it pain would've meant leaving.
Now I know there's nothing romantic about bleeding.