A book flies past my head slamming into the wall behind me. Across the counter stands my husband. The father of my children and partner. We are fighting again. I swear it is the last time, every time. He’s staring at me with those eyes that once captured my soul. Now I am only captured by my fear. He takes a stumbling step towards me and I brace myself for the impact of what it is to come. He clumsily attempts to grab another timeless hardcover from the mahogany bookshelf, the one he built for me. He fumbles with the spine and opts for the steel bookend nearby. He raises it above his head and aims it in my direction. It connects with my face with a awful thud. I explode violently, advancing towards him grasping the book that he threw before. I briefly glance down finding the book in my hand to be our wedding album. I rack it across his sloppy form and he retaliates with futile fists. We exchange punches and kicks, album in hand. I slam it into the top of his skull as he wraps both arms around my waist bringing me unto the ground. He wrestles the book from my hands and casts it aside. I swear it is almost poetic how he so easily throws it away, the same way he throws us away. How he throws punches and objects. Our domestic life is anything but. It is angry and burning and animalistic. He has his hands wrapped around my neck now and is straddling me. I am sinking under the burden of his weight. I am breathless in the betrayal of love and its ugly hydra head. I grip his hands and dig my nails into the flesh there but he is unfaltering and relentless. 3 minutes. Does he have that long? Could he hold me for 3 minutes..? I struggle against the weight of my dead love. I punch him with the hand that wears my wedding ring and he lets up from pressure. I take a grasping breath and wrestle out of his grip. He falls to the ground beside me. His breath is dragon’s fire of liquor. I come to my feet quickly and grab the album and barricade myself in the bedroom passing through the halls of my, our home. Pictures and paintings hang from the wall unmoving and unprovoked by the happenings of the house. To be so apathetic as to be inanimate, I wish I was inanimate. He chases after me and I slam the door just as he reaches the frame. I lock the door and tear out the pages of the album as the pages fall like snow at my feet. Tear apart our happy memories. The alter, my sparking white dress. His smile, our family united. Tear it all until it is nothing but tinder to be set aflame. He pounds the door wordless. There are no words for what has come to pass and will continue. But I will set this place alight.