I wish I had the strength to actually do it.

I guess I had a happy life. I don’t know. I counted my lovers and the count is over 100. So I guess I did good, right? My wife says she respects the amount of lovers I had before her. I always used protection and sometimes I was actually scared, but I came out clean.

I got a call one day from someone I never even knew, but a friend of my dad’s, saying to come to the hospital. He always talked about killing himself, and he eventually did. Worked his job and drank himself to death. My sister and I got the insurance money. Not much, mind you. Hell, not much at all. But it rang in my head all of those times he picked up the bottle and said that it was his bullet.

So I’m married now, with two step kids. They are great. My wife beats me. Physically harms me. I had to get dental work, thank god I had insurance for it. I work from home. The job isn’t what it used to be so I make less money than her now, even though the company pays utilities and we have fast-as-light internet. But I want to kill myself too.

I tried. Several times I started. But something always stopped me. I do want to live, but I don’t want to live anymore. There’s a choice we have that we continue to live in pain and with all of the hurt. She beats me and nobody cares, because I’m a guy. I should take it. I do take it. And I cry and weep and my eyes get swollen and I want to escape into my dreams.

I’ve been in physical therapy for a motorcycle accident, years ago, and was given pain killers. They worked great. But I can’t afford them now. I could get heroin, I suppose, but I don’t want to waste away in front of the children. They deserve better.

She constantly reminds me that she wishes I were dead. That I should just die. I wish I could.

I ask God to forgive me for my sins, because I sure as anything have quite a bit of them. But the punches, black eyes, chuckles by the cops when the kids call 911 saying I should just man up, I can’t take it any more.

I guess I’m smart. I have a high, extremely high IQ and aced my SAT’s, but dropped out of college because I couldn’t afford it. I don’t even think that matters any more. Because I am a drop-out my wife berates me. I could run circles around her job and some days she praises me at how smart I am then degrades me and hurts me the next. I can only find a retreat on the toilet reading a book. She wants to see me with another guy, knowing that I’m bi. Or I guess I am, I had fun in college. But she yells at me and screams because I don’t want to do it again. She hits me for things.

I save bugs. I take them outside. She crushes them. She’s angry. I love her.

I don’t know what to do. Sometimes I take to drink. I can get drunk enough to forget, but drinking… drinking makes everything seem OK when it’s not.

I don’t have a car anymore. I can’t afford parts. Her ex is unemployed and barely pays child support. I am drained and I mean drained to the point I have nothing to sell but my soul. She won’t take me to get parts. She won’t get a tire for my bike so I can at least go to the supermarket for food for myself. She won’t let me see friends of hers. She won’t let me see friends of mine. I’m trapped and I don’t see a way out. My family is long since dead and I stretched the friendship of my acquaintances pretty thin.

She does drugs and I enjoyed them with her, new things to me. I can’t do them any more. I want food. I don’t want pills or powder, I want food. But I can’t even buy food for myself.

I get yelled at for talking to women. Get accused of sleeping with anyone I talk to. I never cheated on her. I just want to die. But I want my story told first, that’s the only thing keeping me back. I want someone to know my life and my experiences and my thoughts.

I have lots to tell. How I wound up here I don’t know.

I have strength, but my father didn’t. I hope I don’t follow his path. But I can understand why he did what he did now. I didn’t then.