Domestic Abuse Awareness Month

Our words have power. Our words bring healing. Our words are torches for others to follow when they cannot see the way forward. This poem from a Domestic Abuse survivor harnesses that empowerment and healing. 

I met you through a friend,
When I was feeling small,
She didn’t know you very well
but I thought it worth a call.

The first time I met you I found you so honest, your previous girlfriend sounded crazy I promise!

You moved straight in on the second day,
You promised me you would never go away,
You told me you loved me
I couldn’t believe my luck,
Who’d want a young Mum with two kids running amuck?

You texted and phoned me all day long
leaving me lists of things you wanted done
You cared so much you asked where I was
You liked me at home where I couldn’t get lost

When my friends came around
you would not be too happy
You said that they used me and that made you snappy.

My family didn’t like you but I couldn’t see why
You loved me so much it made me want to cry.
You thought it would be best if we moved far away,
My family wouldn’t care, they wouldn’t have a say.
It would be best if we didn’t tell a soul,
We just needed to move that was the goal,
I didn’t want to move I had just had a baby, I weren’t sure I would manage no job and no family.

I had started to wonder what I had done wrong and began to notice anger where once there was song.

I needed to get, everything done, the mess in house, he said looked like a slum.

Before I knew it there was another on the way, he found it funny how I didn’t have a say.
I began to wonder how I’d ever got here, by now I was living practically every day in fear.
It wasn’t the punches, the screaming and shouting, that I could take it was the silence that was drowning.
The looks and the glances, the anger in your face, the nights led awake, the dark I learned to hate.

I would try to get changed
with the door firmly locked, a glance of my body would be all that it took.
I even learned how to bend down the other way; never leaving anything on display.

The silent tears that would roll down my cheeks, were ignored but then course I was so weak.

The next one arrived and this caused more trouble, they wanted me to hold them, they wanted a cuddle.
They cried and cried but you chastised them for just being alive.

A few months later another was growing,
I was sick, of all sowing, you didn’t like the ones that you had nor me it would seem, you were certainly no Dad.

You told me I would lose them if I ever told the truth, I covered for you constantly afraid of what you’d do.

One day an angel reached out to me, I couldn’t take no more ya see,
You didn’t know I’d met her for sure and even I weren’t sure what she was for.
Bit by bit, I told her how it was,
I asked her why she came to me she said it’s just because.
It took two years and many more assaults, control & rapes but I’m glad I took the step that day and a statement I did make.

The damage done to all my kids astounds me still today they’re victims too not witnesses and this I have to say.

I still look over my shoulder now, I guess I always will but I’m glad I stopped taking that coercive control pill.

Credit: @freedom4lou

If you need any support at all, please contact Healthwatch Doncaster on any platform. 

The freephone, 24-hour National Domestic Abuse Helpline 0808 2000 247