the way
he grabbed you,
and hurt you
reminded me
all too much
of him being
beaten

"i'd rather die," i say, with your fist pressed to my cheek
               "i need you here," you say, as you cry...
                                  my face is bleak.

You said things,
these things that hurt
we thought something
you proved wrong
you tried to change,
It didn’t work
we left,
not turning back
you begged for forgiveness
she gave it
we went back
and forth
for years on end
you hurt us,
far too many times
yet she couldn’t leave,
not for good
one night,
everything changed
things were thrown along with words
I hid
police were called
Into custody you went
again
bruises covered her
my blood boiled
you begged again
and again
I had had enough
for a long time
I saw what you are
she didn’t
she cried for you
I comforted
she finally stopped going back
I wasn’t sure,
sure she wouldn’t waver
she tried
and tried
and tried
and didn’t go back...

I'm six years old. I'm six years old and my favourite colour is green because it's the colour of my eyes and I think my eyes are the prettiest things I have ever seen.

I'm eight years old. I'm eight years old and I had a nightmare so bad I felt like my eyes were deceiving me. My favourite colour is now the same pale blue as my Mum's floral bedsheets because they make me feel safe.

I'm ten years old now. I'm ten years old and I'm a big girl because I'm allowed to walk to school with my friend instead of my Mum. We walk past fields of buttercups and other pretty flowers but my new favourite colour is the peach of the rose in my front garden.

I'm twelve years old. I'm twelve years old and I can't stand the colour green anymore because the meaner people in my school decided my self worth was less important than their jokes. I don't have a favourite colour anymore, but if you ask I'll say it's purple.

I'm fourteen years old. I'm fourteen which means I've been a teenager for a year and I still can't stand the colour green. My Mum let me dye my hair for the first time and now it is red and red is my favourite colour, but if you asked I would still tell you it's purple.

I'm sixteen now. I'm sixteen and I think I know everything, I met a boy that I like for the first time, my Mum doesn't know, but I think he makes the colour green a bit easier to look at because he told me he loves my eyes and that they are the most beautiful things he has ever seen. He gave me a pair of rose tinted glasses and I'm not quite sure why, but for now my favourite colour is the deep brown of his eyes but if anyone asks, my favourite colour is still purple.

I'm eighteen now. I'm eighteen and I can finally drink without it being illegal, and I have started drinking to forget everything except the colour of my Mum's pale blue floral bedsheets, the peach of the rose in my front garden, the bright red of my hair and the green of my eyes but most of all I'm drinking to forget the purple of the bruises that litter my skin, the purple that I always insisted was my favourite colour for reasons unknown to me.

I should be twenty years old now, and my favourite colour should be the orange of the sunset, the pink of the sunrise or maybe even the yellow of the buttercups in the fields I used to walk past on my way to school, but I did not make it to twenty years old. My favourite colour was never purple and I never asked for my skin to be constantly tainted that way, but you made sure I never healed and now my Mum is laying purple flowers on my grave and she's wishing she fought more to get my favourite colour to be green again like when I was six years old and in love with myself and the world around me, because if I still loved the innocent green then maybe I wouldn't be suffering my greatest nightmare as a child with the only comfort being tucked up in the seemingly endless sea of brown. I always tricked myself and everyone else into thinking things were perfect with rose tinted glasses but the lenses shattered and the last flower you laid on my grave was the peach coloured rose from my front garden, and now the petals have wilted and all of the colour has been drained from me but this new world has more hues than I could have ever dreamed of.

What gives a father
The idea
That he has the right
To abide his son?
Hit him?
Hurt him?
Bully him?

Why does he think
That just 'cause he's bigger,
Older
Stronger
He can tear him down?
Break him?
Beat him?

How is he okay
With taunting his own child?
Criticizing him.
Telling him
He'll never be good enough.
A disappointment.
A failure.

The hurt , the pain, the fights,
For others were unseen sights,
Hidden away, at home the secret would stay,
carefully thought of,
A fear which was never sought of,
For a child should have been unknown,
They were not even fully grown.

The emotions they had to deal with, had nobody to truely feel them with , not knowing , when it would be , the future they wish they could see , it could happen at any time , the kid should have been in her prime.

The smiles infront of others ,
The constant unsure stutters,
The acts of being brave,
Are the ones others generally crave,
Trying to escape the sudden calls, and after can hardly even crawl.

Waiting for this all to end, abit of safety would have been a god send, to talk of it now , we are still unsure how, the marks may no longer be there, but still we doubt if they care , to trust people everyday is much more difficult than they say.

This thing everybody knows of, but still is hardly spoken of, the children won't say it, adults prey among it, this problem needs to stop or it will hit an all time top.

The first time I met you, I tasted blood in my mouth. You reeked of ***** and misogyny and bad intentions. You reeked of my mother’s rotting happiness.

Every time I saw you my skin turned to Braille, but that never gave you the right to try and read it. See, the small of my back was not your pocket, my chin was not your coffee cup and my shoulder was not a place for your crocodile tears. You don’t have to touch a person to know them.

When you realized I wasn’t a tween romance novel, you started to read my mom like she was self-help book. But I knew you were illiterate the day my mother’s makeup foundation couldn’t find the exact shade that went with black eye. The cut on her lip was just a new shade of lipstick and the bruises encircling her neck and wrists began to look like jewelry. She told me they cost more than any pearls she’s ever owned. And like Samson, my mother’s hair was cut short. But it was by her doing. What good was strength when you were the one pulling her around by it?

But the moment we found out that she was carrying life inside of her your hands had to find a new hobby. I suggested training your fingers on how to pack a bag but instead you chose how to learn to pick up bigger bottles. It was a relief to see my mothers stomach swell rather than her face but 9 months is nothing compared to 18 years.

The only solace I find in you being in my brother’s life is that I won’t have to teach him how to hate you, he’ll already know. And I’m counting down the days until the ocean in his veins form a category 5 hurricane. I’m counting down the days until he destroys you.