Love Poem: Holding My Breath
Wendy Boutin Avatar
Written by: Wendy Boutin

Holding My Breath

If you've never had the most important thing in your life held against you... 
I wouldn't expect you to understand what I've been through.
If you've never felt so defeated and weak, 
you felt sick to your stomach and dropped to your knees.
I wouldn't expect you to see what I've seen. 
You wouldn't know how I held my breath and waited.
Or how I felt broken or the blood that I've tasted.
People can judge without batting an eye.
But these same people have never had to lie.
To say something that means so much 3 simple words,
like "I've had enough".
I love you is meant for the ones who earn it, 
not for those people who manipulate and turn it. 
love is not bruises, sadness and hate.
love is not pain, or seeing how much I can take,
People may think I'm "Broken" and that's fine. 
because at the end of the day I'm yours and you're mine.. 
I feel safe and I don't flinch under your hands.
I'm genuinely happy and I know people don't understand,
How could they?
I'm not afraid. I don't have to keep this secret, 
I'm not afraid that he will find me or Afraid I have conceived his..
I Don't have to lie and I don't have to feel ashamed.
I think of nothing but happiness when I say your name.
I don't hide anymore, hearing the bottle smash beside me,
I don't cry myself to sleep after he's forced himself inside me.
These thoughts are crippling...
I can't deny the heartache as it gnaws the strings that keep me sane,
Waking up from nightmares, screaming another mans name.
Please just stop.
I don't want to do this. It hurts....
Bleeding on the floor as I question my worth.. Again.
I wake up in an embrace that feels like home yet i shudder.
Constantly afraid of a man who's eyes broke me and made me a mother.

_WendyMae