The early morning prep talk “Don’t be a bitch, you’re fine. Cover your face, let him hit your body. You can take it there. No one will see the marks there.”

Sometimes I wonder if I liked it. I like skipping to the explosion because I liked how it felt to get hit. The painful contact on my skin. I felt all the pain fully. Until at some point my body would go numb. Way before he was finished. I survived again. Another battle, and I lay here still alive. Victorious. Give me my trophy because I am invincible. I can survive anything. I felt alive knowing I was an inch from death but still breathing. Sometimes I wonder if I miss the fear and the chaos. Sometimes I wonder if that was actually the simpler unpredictable predictable times.