The final blistering thought I recall,
    before the abrupt, slicing punch
    to my underbelly that seeped
    into my bowels, was that I needed
        an exit plan out of this dragon’s lair..

See, the actual leaving is the easy part;
    but always entails a frenzied farewell,
        he pitifully pleads his case:

I’m sorry Babe. Please don’t go.
    Please stay; it will never occur
    again. Don’t you understand
    that it pains me to treat
        you like some gutter rat,
        skinned and skewered
    for some desperate loser
    who can’t pull it together?

My chin droops, as the harrowing shame
    flushes my cheeks, like some cheap rash
    that creeps up my skin and leaves
        a puddle of blotches that itch and tingle
        in unadulterated agony. It is my fault
    that I imprudently remain with the Cyclops
    with the commanding frame, the one
        that can catapult from a tall building,
        always landing lithely on two feet,
    the one that can outrun a cheetah,
    hunting me down, shadowing
    me, so that I cannot breathe.
I stand tall, but I am no match
    for the unruly demon. Playing
        a game of Russian Roulette
            has its advantages over this repellent
            arrangement, for I am a mellifluous
        doe, caught in the giant jaws
            of a slick, steel, bear trap,
        viscerally exhausted, as mental fatigue
            threatens to debilitate my armor,
                leaving me defenseless, vulnerable.

I must now bide my time, until that precise
    moment where I escape like Spiderman,
        scaling the periphery of soaring skyscrapers,
        in a frantic moment when he is asleep, or drunk,
        or both, after I have administered
    a sleeping pill in his bottle of Jack Daniels,
    which he meticulously hoards and gobbles
        until he is lethargic enough to nod off.
It’s that, or I take the cleaver out of its casing
    and carve my initials into his chiseled,
        masculine, furry chest, followed by resting
    the pistol against the temple of my head,
        count to three, and desperately hope
            I draw a boorish blank.