Cycle Snapped and Vow Kept

A door slams, glass breaks
She shudders in her bed.
A voice screams, a fist smacks
She hides, buries her head.
Footsteps sound, a door creaks
She shuts tight her eyes.
A hand slides, breath rasps
She begins to cry.

Ten years on, she wakes in dread
Looks over to where he sleeps
Her body aches from the last 2000 nights
The cycle is complete.
She lays a hand where her child now rests
She knows what must be done.
He grunts, asleep after his latest binge
She takes this chance to run.

She slips away, doesn't make a sound
Steps onto the first stair-
It creaks, He's suddenly awake?
She starts. He mustn't find her there.
He gets there first, slams shut the door,
Fast for his drugged state.
She knows she'll never get away.
She's left it way too late.

He's woken in a nasty mood
He punches her again.
He grabs her hair, drags her upstairs -
Laughing at her pain.
He kicks her once, he kicks her twice,
She gasps for breath there on the floor.
She cowers back, one thought in her mind,
No more. Please God, No more.

She reaches to him blindly
Ripping skin with her free hand.
He lurches back, howling in shock.
She manages to stand.
He tastes his blood, pure rage sets in
She sees murder in his eyes.
Then with one desperate shove, she drops to her knees
Downstairs, neck broken, he lies.

So she sits on a wooded stool,
Listening to them decide -
If she is a murderess
Or if she was justified.
Her stomach's big, it's nearly time,
It won't be much longer now.
But this is no way to raise a child
Head bowed she makes a silent vow.

Three months on and she gave away
All ties to that new life.
God Bless my child she whispers
As she fingers an old knife.
She pictures the perfect face of Hope
Not the many times she's wept.
Then she cuts her wrists, smiling at fate
Cycle snapped and vow kept.