Melbourne

I was in Melbourne.
I was young.
I attended Uni.
I attended a man to avoid attending hospital again.

He invaded
without sex,
without asking,
without permission.

He took with brutality,
with my labia cold,
without lubrication.

He hurt me
with my vaginal walls tearing,
with my throat screaming,
with my fingernails slicing my palms.

He impregnated me three times
then made me empty my womb each time
because the changed his mind.

First he was my boyfriend.
Then we lived together.
Then I couldn't get out.

My father had enough.

He brought me home to Canberra.

Causeway Bay

Years later I was living with the man who would become my husband and father to our daughters.

We were crossing a busy street in Causeway Bay near Times Square.

An old woman pushed a makeshift cart
stacked with bundles of old magazines toward a recycling station.

I pulled him back.

He recoiled.
He resisted.
He snapped.

“I can’t take care of myself?”

That moment stayed with me.

For twenty years I brought it back.

“I am trying to help you. You resist.
I save your shins. You resist me.
I save you. You snap at me.”

For twenty years he took the blows.

The corrections.
The nitpicking.
The rage.
The jabs.

He stayed.