dollhouse diaries: Dawn's new beginning

she barely recognizes herself
with her hair dyed blond
and all the weight she has lost
since she left

he won't be able 
to find her
he didn't even know
she had a grandmother
or of the house she inherited
from her two years ago

that was when 
she still believed
he might change
before that one black eye
turned in to many

she kept telling herself
he wasn't hurting Alison
things would be fine
but her daughter
had been younger then
asleep by eight
his fights with her
muffled
by the television

she would tell her 
she hit her eye on
a cabinet corner
that she sprained
her wrist moving the tv
to dust underneath
the broken bottles on the floor
was just another
clumsy mommy accident

she doesn't have to lie anymore
Alison is safe in her bed
in their new home
the moving men have left
she will stay up all night
 putting things
the way she likes them
he isn't here to tell her 
what to do now
or how she should be

this house feels too big 
without him taking all the air
too quiet without
his heavy footsteps on the stairs

she left at night
while he was passed out drunk
after some particularly
brutal "makeup" sex
that he felt entitled to
because he came home with flowers
and had finished his 6th beer

just two suitcases and her daughter
drove through the night
stopping only once at a diner
because Alison wanted pancakes

when they arrived in town
she used the key her grandmother
had left to see what furniture
had been saved in the storage unit
it was enough to furnish the house

she can't believe 
she actually went through with it
she should be happy
but instead she feels hollow
as if she were a cantaloupe half
spoon-carved
​of all seed and flesh