It's the land of the free, so why do I keep getting roped in by him?

It's the home of the brave, so why am I still so afraid?

"I don't want this," I stutter. "I don't want you."

He smiles. He giggles. "You said that last time."

And the time before, and the time before, and the time before. And yet there was always a time after. And this time there will be too.

I can't help feeling like I have to be making something beautiful here. Maybe I'm sewing a quilt. How else would I make all the tears worthwhile, all the sweat, all the broken smiles?

"I'm ready when you are," he whispers. But I'm not ready. I never am. He waits.

"I was trying to be polite," he whispers. "I was trying to be a gentleman."

"Take off your shirt," he whispers.

And somehow he's trained me to do this, taught me to bare my skin and bare my soul.

"That isn't all," he says to me. It is never all. There will always be a time after.

He touches my chest. His hands are cold. I can't look him in the eyes.

Instead, I look at his wrists. I look at his scars. I look at my leverage.

I know I could turn the tables, I could make things equal. It would be so easy, too. Just a tiny touch, that's all it would take. He's run my fingers down so many parts of himself, but that's still the virgin territory, the uncharted ground. A holy land or a hell.

Except I don't do it. I never do it. He's still working his hand as he tells me to take off my pants. Some things never change. Some people never change.

I didn't want this, I remember.

I didn't want him.

I wasn't ready.

And it didn't make a difference.

It never makes a difference.

"Perfect," he breathes into my ear. But it isn't, not when there are scars on his body and bruises on mine, spots on his soul and holes in mine.

And it starts, and it ends. He holds me, and I let him. I fall asleep under his arms and his eyes, and when I wake up his fingernails have left marks in my skin.

It starts, and it ends, and he lets me out of his bed. He never lets me have my own clothes back. I have to walk out wearing his, every time, and people on the street, they'd never know…

He fills my closet. Isn't that ironic, I think. Isn't that terrible.

I sleep in my own bed for a night or two or three, in my own arms, in my own thoughts, and then he calls me again, and he picks me up again.

"I don't want this," I stutter. "I don't want you."

He smiles. He giggles. "You said that last time."