abuse

This is based on a true story. Permission granted.

It is not love that is blind. It is fear. Your supposed love for me ebbs away, turning me into a rag doll, too broken to fight back. Hold me down, scream in my face, touch me when I say no. No. Resistance becomes my enemy. Empowerment strips me of safety. Why? Because he hits harder, scream louder, and makes life unbearable when I attempt defiance. 

Lying alone and cold after being thrown about -- for no reason other than existing -- frozen in terror and suppressed rage. Some willfully scream, flail, and fight the weight of your body. Others silently groan at hurled insults that rips the soul into strips of forlorn fabric.

Eyes silently screaming - begging you to stop. 

You don’t stop.

Day after long day my brain is clouded by repeated abuse. Do you know that for the longest time I didn’t even know. 

I didn’t know.

You hurt me, but the layer of scars numb newly inflicted wounds. Constant abuse becomes normalcy behind closed doors. Most times nobody sees any of my bruising and I figured others have these “normal” injuries as well.

The bruises on my face and body when I meet my friends the next day are nothing compared to the battered shell of my soul. Leave, they say. Leave? If you felt this level of dominance on a regular basis, I am pretty sure you would not so flippantly tell me to simply “leave.” 

Fear grips my heart at the thought of leaving, but a glimpse of freedom, ever so small, burns in my eyes.  

For some, hope comes. Hope does something, placing a yearning strong enough to risk leaving.

For others, hope never comes, and remain in an endless abyss of anguish and captivity.