Where did he go?

I used to think my dad was a good man but would a good man beat his wife while dying of COVID? I know pain can create a monster but it also created a mad man

I used to think the only man I love was a good man but he showed me even the best can hurt you the worst.

I’ve been beaten and raped by a bad man, but men can be bad in different ways, like cheating on a pregnant woman, like choosing what’s easy instead of trying hard to make it work for your family.

Where did he go? The one I knew I could count on when everything fell apart, the one who knew the pain men caused me and promised it won’t be the same. I never really needed to be fixed, I needed to be loved.

After all the disappointment I’ve been in my almost 30 years, this was the sharpest knife and the deepest stab in the back because learning the worst heart break and betrayal could come from the one you felt safest with, you don’t recover from that.

It turned me into the mad man I call my father, the man who loved and was taken advantage of, he who is possessed by anger and self hatred, he sits peacefully in his room asking himself why did they replace me and he comes out with red in his eyes and strikes the woman he thought was perfect because even after years of choosing her, she chose someone else for the thrill of it.

But I’m my father now, I’m consumed and marinating in a mix of anger, depression and chaos, where my emotions are turning into cocktails of disaster and I have no control over my heart because it bleeds at the very thought, “he doesn’t love me”

He loves someone who won’t do half as much for him, why does he not want me?

He chose someone who already loves someone else, why does he not want me?

He showers her with affirmation while she gets it from other lovers, why doesn’t he fucking want me?

I’m a zombie and I don’t say brains brains brains, the only thought that has consumed my very night and day, that turned a once happy woman into an image that brings so much pain when staring into a mirror is, he doesn’t love you, he doesn’t want you.

Where did he go? After all this I want him to come back, why is my desperation for someone that may not even exist stronger than my will to live? Is it the need to give our child the family I once desired but never had? Is it a love that I should have conditioned but decided to keep forgiving mistakes so I could spend my life with a man who is now a ghost?

Where did he go? I just wanna know. Why do I love someone who isn’t here anymore?

Again, I’m not enough.

I lost the weight, but I gained the stretch marks.

I lost the acne and scars but I gained the dark circles underneath my eyes

I lost the attitude, but became too boring

I lost the childishness but became too old

I tried to be perfect but that’s not what you wanted.

I tried doing more but you cared less

I changed a lot about myself to be enough but I missed the point

You’ll never be enough for someone who doesn’t know your worth, whether you changed to add more value, they’re blinded by the superficial things in life that even though you are 90% what they need, they’ll go after the 10% of what you don’t have.

And that’s the reality, no one is good enough, I wasn’t, I don’t think I’ll ever be, I just wish one day someone chooses me and makes that choice everyday

I’m losing.

I thought I’m becoming whole. But everyday I feel there’s a hole in my heart that grows bigger.

I lost myself when I lost you..

you made me feel like I’m capable of more.

Now there’s an empty space for the piece of my heart that left with you..

you’ve taken my strength, my hope, my faith..

But also my appetite, my energy, my drive.

I lost myself, I can’t see the person I used to be when I look at my reflection.

I see someone defeated, unwilling to fight or even try anymore..

I lost the smallest yet biggest part of me..

I will never be whole again..

I lost myself.

Maybe one day

And maybe one day you’ll find the sadness you gifted me with

You’ll hate how hard you try to get rid of it but it’s constant

Maybe one day you’ll wake up and miss my laughter

Then you’ll remember how I stopped one day for no reason.

Maybe one day you’ll look up at the rainbow and remember I looked at you the same way, with so much hope.

Then you’ll remember how the colours turned to tears.

Maybe one day you’ll hear a song and remember I once sang that to you

But I stopped singing because you stopped asking me to

Maybe one day you’ll finally see that you were counting stars when you already had the moon.

And just maybe you’ll call my name and hear no answer because you’ve lost me, not to another, not to death, but to the pain you drowned me in.

Consumed

The loneliness creeps in at night, unwanted, uninvited, unbothered and frightening, yet we’re familiar, the uncomfortable feeling that sets in, but I lay with you and you know my every secret, every ache, the tingly feeling running through my now dampened skin because I’m afraid to lay with my loneliness and yet I do this every night.

I don’t know the warm feeling, the feeling of having someone, even something to ease my nerves, but I know you, I know you who destroys my sleep, who watches my body clench in fear of my life, my heart, my regrets, if not you? Do I drink a little more or pop another pill? How do I stop you from invading my peace? How do I stop you from drowning me in guilt and sorrow? You draw my tears until I’m dry, you scare my soul until I sweat, you enter my dreams and I’m trapped in fear.

I beg you to leave, but you can’t because I created you, I feed you all my pain and now you’re more than me, more than what I can control.

The devil on my shoulder

This pain I endure, I accept because I’m told, “It’s his plan.”

But was it his plan to feel the shivers run through my spine when the devil on my shoulder manifests its strongest poison?

I swallow and gasp, why did I accept that?

Do I intentionally sabotage myself because I have no control over my impulses

Do I not know the wreckage I’m wrestling out of only to sink deep back into like it’s quick sand?

I want to learn but I’ve lost my faith, I guess my mind was vacuumed of all positivity

I guess this is a 3am thought

When the light shines through my window, I’ll be young and naive again

Not for long, just while my shoulder has no occupants.

Follow the white rabbit

Do you know how I stay awake wondering where did I go wrong?

While you sleep peacefully

My skin begins to crawl

I toss and turn till I feel no more

Numbed by my addiction

A pill, a needle, a bottle

I’m not me, anymore

Do you know how I lost myself?

I can’t recall

I guess I chased the white rabbit

And fell into a hole

I try to crawl out but I can’t fight anymore

I lay in my despair

No hope for me at all

More than anything I’d love to love myself.

From a young age I was forced to accept that I’m not good enough, my complexion was darker than the rest of them, my behaviour was too playful, I wasn’t like the other girls, I was running around, climbing trees and jumping off walls, I was happy with the way I was, but it was one of these moments where I was most comfortable that ruined my self esteem, forever.

Here I am sitting on a wall, singing a song I heard on the radio station, as usual no one noticed me, no one wanted to join me because I was the odd one from all my sisters so it just so happens that i overhead a conversation that will break my heart everytime, my sisters who were popular chilling with all their friends, gossiping and giggling when someone noticed the little girl who sat on the wall, “ whose the small girl on that wall?” They asked, to what my sister replied, “ Eww, that ugly black pig? She’s my tenants child, she’s from the farms.” I was just a child, but it destroyed my self esteem, I remember the same friend walking pass me a few months later and asked me where’s my parents because apparently I’m not from here.

I grew up wanting to fit the image that my sisters considered perfect, I wanted to be skinny, I wanted long black hair, I wanted to be light brown and I wanted to be known as their sister and not the tenants child.

So I tried, I stopped climbing as much, I stopped cutting my hair, I stopped eating a lot and for a little while I think they liked me, maybe throughout my teen years, they picked on my scars and my glasses but I was abit prettier to them now so I could live with that.

But when the seizures started, I had to gain weight, but I’m back to self hatred and no longer having a self esteem, I’m now an embarrassment to the family, I’m too fat and my weight is disgusting, and if it comes down to it maybe it wouldn’t bother me this much but I’ve never been good enough, pretty enough and loved enough to accept when they criticize me, it ruins me, it makes me want to punch mirrors and throw away my comfort food, it makes me wanna stick my toothbrush down my throat until I can’t throw up anymore, it makes me wanna hide underneath a hoodie so no one can judge my weight and complexion.

And no matter how many compliments I receive, no matter how old I get, it always comes back to “she’s my tenants child.”

One day, one hour, one life ruined.

They say it’s what we wear, it’s how we speak or how we ask for the wrong attention, they say it’s usually by strangers or people with psychological issues. They say we asked for it. They say you should have known better, they say how can you allow this to happen? They say you asked for it.

I was only 15, he promised me no harm, no hurt and no pain. He lured me in by telling me “we’re just going on a date, baby.” I trusted his words, after all we’ve been together for a year.

I was only 15 wearing my green check shirt and waiting for his car to fetch me, he arrives looking uninterested, untidy, unbothered, the drive was quiet and I should have known why.

He drives home and I ask “Why?”

“Come in and say hi to mom while I change.”

I believed him.

I enter and he latches the gate and door and I’m standing in an empty house, not even his mother was home.

He asked me about why I wouldn’t give him my virginity and I responded telling him that I’m too young and I’m not yet ready, I was 15 when he slapped me and called me a liar.

I was 15 when he pushed me on the couch and pulled off my clothes, the louder I screamed the harder he punched, I told him to stop, I said no, I cried as loud as I could, no one heard me.

I was 15 when he threw me on his bed, called me a bitch and never heard a word I said, I was too thin when he punched again, too weak to fight off the man who promised me no harm.

I shouted, I cried, I pushed him.. I tried.. I tried and I failed.. he got his way while I laid there losing every bit of happiness and sanity I’ve ever had.

I was 15 when I ran away once he finished.. I ran with blood between my thighs, swollen jaws and him crying and saying he made a mistake.

I was 15 when I was raped, I tried to escape, I screamed, I fought but I was too weak. But they tell us that we dress for it, we ask for it and it’s usually by someone we don’t know.

I’m coloured with pain.

I remember sitting on the couch watching romance and planning out my future with my first love, I remember the innocence, the happiness, the hope, the faith, the love..

But it takes an hour for an argument to transpire, for him to call me a bitch, a whore but how? A virgin? He’s my first kiss, my first touch, how am I the names he calls me?

He thought I didn’t want sex because he thought I lied about being a virgin so he called me names, he punched, slapped, strangled and headed me.. he stopped when I bled.. when I cried.. when he came to his senses..

I had scars of blue, purple and sometimes black. Scars not deep enough to make me walk away, marks my mother asked about, but he loves me so he won’t do it again and if he did.. I’ll repeat, he loves me, he won’t do it again. He loves me and the swelling will go away, my skin will be clear again.. he loves me, he won’t lay his hand on me again.