Every morning I wake up and I tell myself, “Today, you’ll be stronger.” And I repeat it over and over in my mind until I’m almost certain that I wouldn’t follow him to hell, not even if he asked me with his lips. I anxiously wait for his name to appear so that I can demonstrate my new found strength, a stone cold silence. A silence that says “I don’t want to” rather than “I can’t”. But just seeing his name reminds me of how I wake up alone and shivering and how warm it is standing in the eye of his man made hurricane even if I’m there drowning. And so every day I fail. Every day I accept his invitation-stripping myself of every cold weather accessory, every emotional barrier, every band-aid covering old wounds and I lay myself in front of him completely bare; for him to love, to criticize, to miss, to place blame on, to lust after, to laugh at, to step on to reach higher ground – whatever he needs me for, just as long as he needs me.

-tbrumm