Battle Scars

"What did you do to get him so mad?" For a minute, just one minute, everything in me goes numb. When I start to feel its the tears that come first, in their path bringing to life the pain beneath the bruises. The salt water stings as it flows over my blackened eye, like burning, like cayenne paper on an open wound. I want to stop the tears from falling, keep them from hurting me where it already hurts but all else is numb. I feel nothing but the pain. As they reach my nose I notice then the crimson colored drops on my shirt. My nose is bleeding, or is it my bustee lip? I would know for sure if I could move my arm, to feel my face but something isnt right because it won't move. I can't tell if its numb of broken or which.
I remember now how it happened, not the why, but how is coming back to me. My face, blue and black and split and swollen and bruised all over; the result of a hand! almost as big as my face coming at me at what felt like 200m/s creating a shattering impact that sends the room spinning with me in it.
Someone please stop him.
Anyone.
I need help.
I fell to the ground after that, I remember because im still lying here. The tiles, cold, were a comfort at first landing like an ice pack, for a few seconds anyway, before the first kick landed in my gut. The pain, too real. Spreading through my entire body until I can feel it in my toes. By the time the second, third and fourth come...that's as far as I can remember, its all black after that.
Lying here where he left me. Surrounded by. ...faces. Bruised, battered and broken, tears rolling down my face. And all the faces want to know is what I did to deserve this.
Fast forward to now, sitting on a different floor, far from broken, healed of all bruises. Lets discuss and address; what did I do? I loved him. Even more so, I thought I knew him enough to trust him to never hurt me. I believed in my heart of hearts that love protects even if it means protecting from self. And why shouldn't I? Why shouldn't any one? Why should love be a cautionary tale with tags like, "at owners risk," "approach with caution" or "run after drink number 2"? Why can't we be vulnerable with the ones with the ones who supposedly love us? And the men; when is strength shown in battery? In inflicting such blinding pain on a defenceless woman?
This ones not on me.
This one will never be justified.
And there will never be enough sorrys in the world to make it right.