Really Found Peace In Your Violence

The hits that never stopped coming,
The attacks that always lingered,
The hurt that stayed so damn long,
The pain that left internal scars,
The wounds that would never truly heal,
The agony of being the child of a child,
The damage that came with her adulthood,
And really, the violence that she came with.

All I wanted was my mother to care,
For her to try and look at me with love,
For her to remind me that I wasn’t alone,
For her to keep telling me I mattered,
But all I got was the opposite of it all,
The cruel reminder that I was unwanted,
The child that was never planned for,
Yet somehow one that wasn’t aborted.

There were days when it hurt to live,
Those days when I forgot to smile,
But the ones that hurt the most then,
Were the birthdays that never mattered,
The days that I spent on hard labour,
The reminder of how much she hated me,
Yet even then she refused to let me go,
Like she was scared of what society spoke.

I spent my days in school and church,
Reading for better grades in school,
Praying for freedom and love in churches,
I hoped and kept going regardless,
Even when I knew no one would listen,
Even when there was so much violence around,
Hidden in the guise of peace that she loved,
But what else could I do; I was but a child.

The hits never stopped, no matter the day,
You would think they were part of the calendar,
So, I learned to come up with excuses of the day.
Started talking about my bruises and wounds,
Like I was the clumsiest of the children my age,
Never because I was her favorite punching bag,
The one she hit and trash-talked to satisfaction,
Without caring of how much a shell she left me.

Questions came easy for the teachers at school,
But my answers never changed, it was obvious,
Because they never knew her the easy that I did,
And I couldn’t explain that it was safer that way,
That the hits didn’t mean much for me anymore,
That they were the only way to know Mother,
To know that she was alive, well, and strong,
And that she wouldn’t try to take her life, again.