One Look

It always started with one look. It was unlike any other look that she saw from him. The first time she saw it was during the middle of an argument. It hadn’t quite reached the peak but while in the middle of her ranting she felt a calm and before she could get a glimpse she felt the reverberations of a crash, and caught his look. She expected a red face with rolling sweat but he was cool with only widened eyes that held a frightening wildness , and she was terrified but he would never,
never, ever
ever
late in the evening as she cleaned up the shattered pieces of the remote she could hardly recall what it was they had argued about and anyway she needed to lessen her nagging, any person could lose their temper because he would never,
never, ever
ever
the second time was during a shouting match that had gotten out of hand. Hormonal, livid and just plain pissed her tongue knew no limits and she’d missed the look but felt its bruising grip around her upper arm like an iron clasp, hurling her body as if a flimsy doll. If only she’d clasped her mouth, if only she’d calmed herself and not let her temper run amok; she reprimanded herself as she rubs her aching belly where their six month old child grew. It wasn’t till morning she noticed the bruise; splotchy angry purple imprint of fingers that the more she looked at, the more they resembled petals, and what was an abuse became a flower that she grew to admire and collect in abundance because she knew he would never,
never, ever
ever
and with one look was a flower, and then another flower; daisies and pansies and roses and lily’s a garden he made of her flesh and body. Then one day with that one look, he gave her a final bouquet, and while she lay on her back, marveling at the dimming lights, she made sure to be careful so as not to crush his petals, clinging to her flowers, her ravaged, cut, bleeding body, she knew that he could,
and that he would,
because she knew that it only takes one look.