"Get in the ring!" Oohd shouted, "Get right back in the ring, right now!"

Blood.

All I could see was blood dripping down my turquoise lingerie. I just couldn't tell if it was mine or his. This time, I hit back. I wasn't going to go down without a fight. Not again after what he did to me in the restaurant a fortnight ago. He had apologized, and said I drove him into a fit of rage for talking back at him in front of his friends.

"So, you think you're a man now? You think you can hit me and get away with it you hoe?" I heard him shout outside the door.

Is this what they call love?

"All this time I thought he was the villain, but as I watched the blood drip from my fingertips, I realised it was all a matter of perspective," I said to my therapist, as a tear rolled down my dark, oval, blushed out cheeks.

I met Oohd in college and ours was an immediate connection. There was something familiar about his aura; he carried an addictive presence that everybody wanted to partake - a strong drink mixed with sweet fruit. If he was a cocktail, I'd call him 'Winter-in-Passion'. Harsh, but sweet and tangy to the tongue. Perhaps it was the familiarity that did it for me. I had a strong, sturdy and wise father, whose presence commanded respect and adoration. Not once however, did he raise his hand towards his wife and children.

Every other man I met from then on, had to match the energy that my father exuded. And that's how I ended up with Oohd. Every word he spoke sounded stoic, dug from those wells of wisdom in ancient times. His faith in the God and worship drew my spirit to him almost instantaneously.

You see, where I come from, a girl moving from her father's house to her husband's house is the dream of every girl. Everything in my daddy's girl fantasy seemed sealed and confirmed in him, a man whom I thought worthy to deflower my innocence and release me from the care of my father. And perhaps, that was the problem.

Perspective.

My perspective was fractured this whole time. I had built castles of sand about this strange man, side by side the reality of a man I had known all my life. In my mind, if he loved me, then he ought to be like daddy. And so, I carried these fractured ideas that Oohd was daddy, when in fact he was not and never could be.

And yet the naivety of seeing my father's love, overshadowed my ability to see a broken love that stood right before me in the name of Oohd. I was the villain too, a villain in my own story of violence. My crime? Wearing colored stained glass whilst trying to dissect the reality of love.