![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
*****
Sometimes you wish you could tell them, "He hit me. He hit her. He hit him." You think, if you could say that and have it be true, they might understand and leave you alone. But he never did that, except once when you maybe-kind of-almost deserved it when you were six and told your mother you hated her for a reason you don't remember anymore -- and people still believe in "spare the rod, spoil the child" sometimes anyway. They don't understand that emotional pain is just as bad, maybe worse, than physical pain, and that telling you to forgive him is like asking you to carve your heart out of your chest. They can't see that saying "Look at it from his point-of-view -- he was sad -- he was lonely" makes you taste bile in the back of your throat and your stomach twist into knots.
Maybe it's because they don't know you cherished the one bit of pride you had left, that even if your parents didn't sleep in the same bed, the same room anymore, your parents still lived in the same house. They don't know how you clung to the fact that you weren't just another broken home, and how it hurt to have that last scrap taken away from you.
They don't understand, and you think maybe they'll never will, because he didn't beat you, and he just betrayed you -- and they all know that the agony of betrayal fades with time, don't they? They'll never understand how much bitterness and longing wells up within you whenever you hear a country song now and remember two years ago when your father turned to you in the car and asked, "What would you do if I had another woman?"
You said, "I'd kill her" then, flatly, and meant it, but now you long to say, "I'd kill you both" because you'd mean it and maybe it would've changed something, somehow. You suspect it wouldn't have changed a thing, but still, sometimes you find yourself whispering "I'd kill you both" wistfully. You wonder if that makes you a terrible person. You suspect it does, but you can't bring yourself to care all that much.
****
You think becoming a statistic makes you less real somehow, and sometimes you touch your cheek just to make sure you're really there. You're often surprised at the feel of solid flesh beneath your fingertips.
Sometimes you wish you could tell them, "He hit me. He hit her. He hit him." You think, if you could say that and have it be true, they might understand and leave you alone. But he never did that, except once when you maybe-kind of-almost deserved it when you were six and told your mother you hated her for a reason you don't remember anymore -- and people still believe in "spare the rod, spoil the child" sometimes anyway. They don't understand that emotional pain is just as bad, maybe worse, than physical pain, and that telling you to forgive him is like asking you to carve your heart out of your chest. They can't see that saying "Look at it from his point-of-view -- he was sad -- he was lonely" makes you taste bile in the back of your throat and your stomach twist into knots.
Maybe it's because they don't know you cherished the one bit of pride you had left, that even if your parents didn't sleep in the same bed, the same room anymore, your parents still lived in the same house. They don't know how you clung to the fact that you weren't just another broken home, and how it hurt to have that last scrap taken away from you.
They don't understand, and you think maybe they'll never will, because he didn't beat you, and he just betrayed you -- and they all know that the agony of betrayal fades with time, don't they? They'll never understand how much bitterness and longing wells up within you whenever you hear a country song now and remember two years ago when your father turned to you in the car and asked, "What would you do if I had another woman?"
You said, "I'd kill her" then, flatly, and meant it, but now you long to say, "I'd kill you both" because you'd mean it and maybe it would've changed something, somehow. You suspect it wouldn't have changed a thing, but still, sometimes you find yourself whispering "I'd kill you both" wistfully. You wonder if that makes you a terrible person. You suspect it does, but you can't bring yourself to care all that much.
****
You think becoming a statistic makes you less real somehow, and sometimes you touch your cheek just to make sure you're really there. You're often surprised at the feel of solid flesh beneath your fingertips.
