I drew yet another figure on the dark walls, eyes closed. As the wound on my back grew bigger, I felt the pain come stronger so I clenched my fist and bit my lips. He hit a spot I could not reach and I knew he did it on purpose so that pain eats me up slowly like he knew it would. Closing my eyes all I saw was black and I imagined the pain to come from something good unlike what it truly was. No, this man loves me, he wouldn’t do this to me, this is not him, this was someone else; I kept repeating over and over, lying to myself over and over again. I never was a good liar until I met Joon.

I remembered the first time I saw Joon – the sun was scorching hot and I was sweating like a pig on the hottest day of summer but there he was, effortlessly walking with a bright smile on his face. I never knew what made him speak to me but he did. At that time I was broken after being held so long by a man I truly loved. Joon picked me up piece-by-piece with no rush like I really was precious and I missed the touch of a man for so long.

With a man like that, how could a woman like me refuse? With him around I felt alive in a way I’ve never been before and I found myself amidst loving such a lovely man. He defined me by the curves of my body and the strands of my hair, every part of me made him smile and that was the side of a man I’ve never seen before. It made Joon seen the softer side of me and I let my guards down. That was my first mistake.

I had always seen Joon a man of dignity through the ways of which he treated me – he was good to me. When he changed, I barely noticed and when I did, it was far too late. He first found solace and love in me but slowly he sees me as his personal hideout, as someone whom he can use to make himself feel endless.

We had good – when he holds me, I feel boundless. Between in lips I felt invincible and I found great solace within him. Joon made me feel emotions difficult to write into words. Around him, the world doesn’t spin as fast as it usually does without him. I found myself loving my body more than I ever did before. Like oceans, endless and wonderful – that’s how he makes me feel.

But thoughts like that don’t last and in time, the firm holds he has on me turned possessive. He forcefully grabs me and passion turned into pain. I lost control of how to please him and instead of loving, he found hurting me pleasurable. When I was younger and I saw how wrongly treated people are by people they love, I feel mad but now when it happens to me, I understand. When you love someone so much, whatever they do even if it hurts you, you let them be. Because it makes them happy.

But this was dysfunctional. The scars left by the man that I loved before him arose again and Joon only added to my wounds. The pain gave me a strange fulfillment on days I found him smile when he hurt me but I knew this could not continue.