Do you clean yourself off and pretend it never happened?
Do you sit staring at a fixed object because you're in shock?
Do you fake falling asleep so the perpetrator leaves you alone?
What do you tell yourself about the abuse?
"He's drunk so he didn't know what he was doing."
"She's always looked at me that way so maybe that will stop."
"I'm sure I must have done or said something to cause this."
Our minds try to reason with the unreasonable,
Explain the unexplainable,
Believe the unbelievable,
Forget the unforgettable and
Justify the unjustifiable.
We try to reason with what happened to us by thinking of what we did to deserve it.
We try to explain what happened to us by reliving the moments leading up to it.
We try to believe what happened to us was our fault somehow but we don't know what we did.
We try to forget what happened to us because the depth of pain is too much to bear.
We try to justify not talking to anyone about it because what happened to us stole our innocence.
Tears for the blood that was shed,
That we were left to clean up afterward.
Tears from the bruises and beatings we survived,
That we were left to try to sleep and go to school the next day.
Tears for the loneliness, neglect, abandonment and loss of a mother,
Where I was left to parent my sisters while my parents were at the bar.
Tears for an innocent childhood lost, for 6 perpetrators and not knowing my future,
Then God came and rescued me, through Jesus Christ and my family is now whole.
Tears for my Dad who said good-bye to me in 2005,
Sadness for that's where he left it when he died in 2008.
Trauma and Tears.
