Where I Belong

My jaw clenches as he turns my head slightly to the left, squeezing my cheeks in-between his fingers as he openly inspects me. His slimy eyeballs roam over my skin, taking in my hardened brown eyes that could spit fire, my high cheekbones that could slice through skin, my puffed out lips that can sew together the words of nightmares, and my thick eyelashes that graze and conceal a hellfire. Those same lashes caress the top of my cheeks as his fingers crush me. He leans in closer, and I want nothing more than to back up far away from his vicinity. Or, better yet, lean in closer and tell him exactly where he can shove it.

“She’s always been a beautiful girl. Once a smile graces her fuckable lips I bet I could have half the town lined up, hands shoved down their pants and begging for a round.”

He sneers down at me, his grime encrusted fingernails scraping my skin before he exerted a burst of force and shoved me. I stumble, losing my footing and reaching my hands out to catch myself as I fall back on my ass. I rise up to my knees, my lips trembling with the weight of the anger burning under my skin, reaching an inferno that could cause third-degree burns.

“Looks like you’ve finally learned your place; on your knees like a good little whore.” I fucking hate myself for the tears that gather in my eyes, the pulsing in my temple felt like a jackhammer and the stinging in my throat akin to swallowing a mouthful of nails.

My sight of the bastard is concealed as my mom finally chooses to intervene; shielding me and facing off against the devil by herself. I tune out their words, unable to stomach watching my mother beg and pliantly listen to this monster on my behalf. It’s the same shit every time and I could easily recite and replay this entire scenario from heart.

I clamp my eyes shut once he advances on her, placing his grimy hands on her skin, claiming her like she’s nothing but property. Like she belongs to him. The nausea threatens to consume me. My mind is no longer loud enough to tune them out.

“Just take me baby. Leave her out of this. She doesn’t need to be involved. You have me.”

Swallowing in this moment seems to be the hardest thing I’ve ever done. Almost as hard as stopping the succeeding tears as one stubborn drop glides down my face. I hate what comes next.

“Say it,” He growls, gripping her in his mangled hands, treating her as nothing but warm flesh and bone.

“I’m yours. You own me.”

My body crumples in on itself, every cell in my body ceasing to function as my mind begs for a reprieve. The slam of my mom’s bedroom door is a nail in the coffin that confines me. We’re never going to escape. And what scares me the most is the little voice in my head that tells me that maybe this is exactly where I belong. That I’m nothing more than a warm mouth, a tight body, someone born and bred for the sole purpose of being fucked and used.

That I’m nothing more than the daughter of a whore, destined to follow in her footsteps.

**