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

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.

The puzzle piece

He filled a gap, emotionally, he gave me the love and attention that my family didn’t, them being too focused on my older siblings, I needed someone too.

He blew me away with kind words and telling me how beautiful I am, he sang a song that consist of him never hurting me and loving me in a way no one can, he touched me in ways that didn’t involve being physical and I submitted to his every word. I was too young to understand the misery I’ll soon bring myself, the pain I’ll soon discover, the realisation that I’ll ruin my life, my teen years and my own happiness.

He was the biggest chapter of my life yet he left the greatest damage.