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My Childhood Nightmare
Bill was a drinker,
an angry man with poison on his breath.
He hated me the moment
he married my mother,
I spent my childhood
learning how close fear sits to death.
more than one-two locks on my bedroom door,
like I was the danger
instead of the little girl trying to survive him,
He screwed my windows shut,
saying I might jump out
Truth is, sometimes I wanted to.
Years of screaming.
Years of pain and bruises
Years of praying
There were guns to my head,
cold metal against trembling skin.
Handcuffs chained me to a door
while he stood there
like power made him a god.
At one point he left 3 of us for dead,
and somehow we still survived.
Mama never wanted to believe me.
Maybe love made her blind.
Maybe fear did too.
So I stayed strong for her when I could
Stayed by her side even when I shouldn't
even when my world was already shattered
I can’t count how many nights
she hid in my bed
while I pretended
I wasn’t terrified too.
But terror followed me anyway.
At thirteen-Fourteen, Thanksgiving night
his nephew Billy held a knife to my throat
"Do you want to die now or later"
Tears fell from my eyes
Mama walking in after the knife was gone
That was the moment
Mama finally chose my side.
But damage like this
doesn’t disappear overnight.
A childhood built on survival
I am not the same girl
I once was.
Part of me stayed trapped
behind those locks, and beaten days
inside that room
with the screwed-shut windows
and fear soaked into the walls.
Screams and Tears bouncing off the walls
Somehow part of me survived.
Now I'm 39
Looking back, I don't know how i survived
All those sleepless nights
The temptations of death running through my mind
I have scars that you may not see
But as you read these
you can see the scars i carry with me
Surviving is it's own kind of revenge.
