I

That familiar taste ran down the back of her throat as it had done so many times before.

She stood staring out at the moonless sky, the river just a few feet away, barely visible in the darkness: a reflection of her own soul?

Wasn’t the new moon all about sewing the seeds of something new?

New beginnings, new intentions, fresh starts?

The pain wasn’t so bad. It was his words that ran over and over in her mind – keeping her enslaved:

Worthless

Useless

Weak

Pathetic

Whore

They were said so often and with such vigour, they had become part of her psyche. Had moulded into her energy field – becoming her.

“Why don’t I have the courage to leave?”, she asked herself in the silence.

To leave and start anew.

She knew she deserved better, but she no longer had the strength.

The tears stung the cut under her eye. She wept silently as the woman she once was, died slowly inside.