She said she was scared of being hurt. I promised her a future different from her past. She said she ain’t ever been loved like this as I pressed my supple lips against that bruised skin to a beautiful complexion. I call her my baby, my only. She had been beaten before but she said the hands on her body didn’t even compare to the words spoken into her mind. Everytime I lean in for a kiss she flinches, braces herself for a slap, with one eye open and her body closed off to me She waits… a tear rolls down her bruised skin and meets my thumb wiping it away. She opens her other eye to see my lips moving giving her words, the words of my love. She tries to separate the lies from the love, the good from the bad but they're all written across the same page I call her heart. It’s so hard gluing crumpled pieces of paper back together to make it look like new.