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?

This is it.

All my life I craved their approval, I wanted their attention, I wanted to be in their presence, whether it earned me an insult or a coffee poured on me, I got their attention, didn’t I?

0-12 years, who am I to them but the ugly sister? The black sister? The pig sister? The one they’re embarrassed to introduce, the one who smells, the one who acts like an animal.

12-19, I’m the wild one, the dumb one, the depressed one, the suicidal one, the failure, the slut, the waste of time, the disgrace?

20-25, I’m the drug addict, the fat one, the whore, the black one, the desperate one, the useless one, the waste of money?

25-30, The one who ruins lives, the whore, wild, sickly, fat, ugly, going nowhere in life, useless mother, not their blood, not good enough, the hated one, the filthy one, the one who will rot in hell.

But I still wanted approval, the acceptance, the glimmer of hope that despite the heart wrenching pain they caused, I’ll be apart of their world, so I’ll take it, I’ll take it until I’m in a dark place, where the echoes of their remarks full the emptiness of the room, but still I forgive them because I hoped they’d be the one to open the door and let light in.

But now 26-30 years, you can’t force family to love you even though you’re connected by blood, it took me years of ridicule and loneliness to understand that I am strong, that the hatred poured onto me in every stage of my life shaped me into something resilient, I’m a pyramid that will stand strong through any obstacle, I’m the seed that grew into a flower with the dirt thrown at me and every time I felt like I was drowning, I was learning to swim, to swim away from toxicity, from loneliness, from the need for approval, from people who bring me pain instead of joy.

All my life I wanted approval but that’s over, now I wish them well.

It happened

Sometimes you watch yourself live a life you never wanted, you see everything you strived not to be become your reality, you watch the pieces crumble to the surface where you lie helpless and alone, everyone you thought would lift you back up, pointed fingers and laughed as if you’re a caged animal in the towns circus, am I beyond repair or really caged and locked into this mess? They laugh, they judged, they don’t throw tomatoes at the show but they threw stones, they watch in anticipation to see your next downfall, but who are they? The ones we love, the ones who said “through it all”, “I’m here for you”, the ones who lived the same reality but hypocrisy is a disease they don’t realize they have, who am I? I’m the one who became everything I didn’t wanna be, I’m the one who watched the life I built fall to pieces, but I am not just the mistakes I’ve made, I’m the one who got back up when there was no hope, I’m the one who rebuilt my foundation with the same broken tiles, while the crowd stood there waiting for another thing to judge, I changed the story, from broken to breakthroughs, it happened, but it didn’t last. So when you talk about my flaws, faults and failures, talk about the other F’s

My FAITH, my Fortitude and my FEARLESSNESS.

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.

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.

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.”