Abuse

[The news posed a question
on leading ladies self defense;
how do you hit? What?
Hit who, whom, how, or why.
I stopped dead in my
thoughts; a moment to reflect
on some notion of violence.]

You hit a man because he has
hurt you first; you hit him as
a payment for cruelty. You strike
his jaw because it is the way
you make your point known.

You hit a man by curling
the stretches of tendon and bone
around themselves, inward,
a spiral. Wrap that whirl
with a thumb, press forward
into his flesh, his face, his groin
with the might of fear. Repeat,
strike again and again until
you've nothing left behind that
arm, that elbow. No fury,
hit him until you cry out, or he
bleeds across his pretty face.

You strike woman because
she forgot your birthday. Or dinner.
To remind her that she is your
servant, a submissive. She is not
a revolution. You put bruises on
her cheeks because you cannot
bear the idea of her independence.

You hit a woman, it is
a new hand, a new feel. You open
those curled fingers, line them
up together, like a board. When you
hit her, you hit her face with the
palm of that hand, never the back,
no knuckles should ever touch her
in anger. You never strike her twice,
either. Once is enough for the
sensitive skin that's already red.

What doesn't get asked, the forgotten question
is the most important piece of puzzle;
what other hits do we define;
the bottle, the bricks, the bottom.
This is the important subset of strikes
against us.

The liquor hits you in the gut,
the liver. The bottle has no fingers
to curl, no elbows to fire off punches.
It's quietly upsetting,
depressing and moving you toward
some end you never considered.
The bottle gave you permission
to be destructive, and holds no
person accountable in words or
moneys, it takes what it wants,
remember this concept when you take
that swallow and drive home.
It's takes it's payment when
you crash your truck into
a power pole on an abandoned
country road that has no traffic. You're
bleeding from the scalp and puking
on your floorboards.

When you hit the bottom, you've
drunk too much, and loved too little.
You've wasted your time in lust,
pretending that love came in time,
not in working hours. You fall hard
off a cliff and into nothing you hope.
You now know you had no permission
to be the angry person who used
their hands to bring pain and break
bones, or spirits. The bottom was
something you saw from the edge;
behind a fence or railing. You've leaned
too far into the open space without
anything to hold you back, invincible?
You fail, and the dive is abrupt,
and landing hard enough to
shatter your hopes of getting up
for work in the morning.