You’re hurting me. I don’t blame you, of course, I could never blame you. However I can’t pretend I don’t hear the lies this household tells.

It’s 8am and you’re using me. You’re choking your skin with that tan coloured tar, manipulating your face into an impossible smile.

By midday you’ll have used me again, maybe more than once. This time you do it quickly, a subtle wink in my direction, perhaps to tame a misplaced hair or to iron out a stubborn crease on your cotton-draped chest.

What hurts me most, though, is when you use me with him around. As if it’s not painful enough to have you so tantalisingly close, I am the audience to this horror film which you parade around in. The villain is too strong for you. Even if you resisted, his arrogant arms always overpower you, claiming you as a prize after completing his evil plan.

Could you just stop smiling? Laughing as if you love him. As if you want him. It shatters me to see this performance day to day, if only you could take off that mask and tell him the truth.

The truth of how you use me late at night to cry to. Once the makeup has smeared and the clothes been torn off. How you tell me you will change you’re life around and promise a new start. A new you. I believe you every time.

I’ve been hung up on this wall for five years, the hook scraping my back and the rope fraying thin with grief. However I’d never change a second, because that would be one less second watching you.