Abuse Is Hell
Belittled,
An eight-year old girl trapped in the middle,
Her heart scarred and brittle,
She looks out the window,
Not knowing where the hell to go.
In her woe,
All she sees are skies of gray.
Feeling that she only gets in the way,
Feeling such emotional despair,
The girl goes to her room scared.
Ready to jump out the window,
Because she has nowhere to go…
Let me paint this picture,
She wonders why –
Why her mother's so bitter,
She wonders why –
Why her father values her less than that bottle of liquor.
She wants to talk,
But he pushes her away and tries to hit her.
Her palms, sweaty and shaking,
She hears things thrown and breaking,
Hurtful names flying while she sleeps,
Dropping slow tears on her bed sheets…
Wakes up to another morning in hell,
Hearing her parents argue and yell,
A scene she'll never forget –
Waking up to see her mother passed out on the table,
Her mother resting, eyes closed, beside prescription labels.
A scene she'll never forget –
Her mother with fresh scars, dried blood caked in her hair,
Her father heading to the bar, an empty case of beer.
Her father doesn't work, just drinks and argues.
He can’t face reality, so he lets out abuse.
Having rarely seen her father when she awoke.
How does her mother cope?
By sitting on the toilet to smoke.
In mornings, the girl goes to school empty.
No one to bother putting food in that young belly.
And when life at school isn't enough,
She comes home to find her father in handcuffs,
Her mother lying unresponsive on the couch,
The neighbors called the cops, they heard shouts,
So the girl spends another night at a friend's house.
Staring out the window towards dark clouds.
But at the very least she believes it's better,
Than spending another night at the homeless shelter.
The last time she asked a question,
It was met with aggression,
When she asks her father he says, "Not today,"
And throws his shoe at her face.
Another day in hell,
Mother back with her face swelled.
More fighting and rioting,
Never any peace, always war,
Her father calling her mother a "whore,"
While her mother pushes her father out the front door.
She gets slapped in the face.
No one to talk to,
No place to run to.
Abuse is hell.
The fire,
Is the apathy and misplaced anger which tears the family apart.
The demons,
Are the family themselves who agonize in their own hell of a household.
Painfully Written by Thorne McFarlane