Stop telling me she only did this because she was scared I was scared too I was a little girl She was an adult She brought him into my life She watched him hurt me Kept him around because he made her happy Because she didn’t get the same kind of treatment her kids got She got something out of the relationship All we got was terrorized For no reason Because we existed Because we were there and wanted to stand up for ourselves and our mother We were hated because we had voices That kept speaking out whenever he was loud She is not a battered women She was not so abused that she couldn’t stand up for herself There were many times she stood up for herself and said she would leave him But she would never leave him because of something he had done to us Only her She wanted him Because she needed someone to hold her up Because she couldn’t take care of herself Even though she had two children doing their best to hold her She put all of her weight on us And all we expected her to do in return Is be a mother She wasn’t a mother She watched us be whipped with belts We stared up at her waiting for her to tell him to stop To push him away to do anything But she wouldn’t she stared at the ground We told her many times about each man she had brought into our lives The ones that sexually abused us Three children came to her for help One pregnant She denied each the help they needed Didn’t believe them, instead asked the abusers for their side of the story Then the man got arrested She lied to the police and told them she had no idea About the beatings about the abuse Like she hadn’t watched or seen our red, bleeding welts She still visited him before his trial Until the very end Until his “accident” that she claims he caused After she was so destroyed She didn’t cry though Not during the funeral Not when she found out She was dry-eyed and angry She spun out of control for years We didn’t talk about my father We didn’t talk about anything She was never home Always working Mainly partying Coming home skinnier and hyper Coming home happy until her next fix All the while my twelve-year-old sister took care of me Day and night From the time I was four until I was seven My mother was a **** head She got angry quickly But was so hyper Leaving all the responsibility to my young sister To parent both me and her My sister had always taken the majority of the care for me But these years it only got worse At this time, we all slept in the same bed A five-year-old, and thirteen year old and a thirty-four-year-old I had put all of my stuffed animals into the bed to sleep with us It was my mother's idea that she and my sister slept on top of them And so my sister listened And they moved their bodies atop my toys I pulled at my favorite Because I slept with it every night My mom got angry and slammed my head into her metal bed frame Hard I cried and she apologized but the damage was still done She met another man Who cleared her of her sorrows And made her from a ****** to a trophy wife She was so happy So it seemed at first So was I At first He charmed us with restaurants And fun activities Structure and attention That lasted about two weeks He charmed my mom into marrying him At this point, we were scared of him He would yell at us for the smallest mundane things And punish us without reason He would hide in our closets Then pop out when we started talking about him He would scream at us I don’t know how to explain how bad this was You don’t understand unless you were there You can’t imagine unless you’ve lived through it again and again His face would get red His eyes looked like ice Normally you thought they were blue but when he was angry they looked icy Like all the fire from his soul was burning him alive and his eyes were trying frantically to put them out He used a threatening demeanor He got close to you Like he was going to hit you He balled his fist And told you how pathetic you were How stupid How fat And worthless First, he’d say it in a cold voice Then get scream at you Then he would kick things around And break them Like the time he broke my mom's doorway Kicked it in so much that she couldn’t shut it He hit me only once He pushed me into the rocks and struck me hard three times on my bottom He also threw my makeup bag at me while I was in the shower It hit my head then fell to the ground My makeup spilled out and my nail polish broke It spilled all over the bag and all over the shower He hit my mom a least once I can remember I told my mom about him sexually abusing me I told her about him adjusting my bras and touching my ***** Which should have been enough to send a mother haywire But it wasn’t I was so ashamed and embarrassed about all of the other things The things that were so so much worse because I was so scared he’d yell at me That I just let him touch me, I just let him do the things he wanted to I’ll forever be mad at myself for that and feel guilty My mom told me from the start she didn’t believe me But I didn’t truly believe her until she lied on the stand testifying for her beloved husband Testifying against the daughter who had tried to protect her so many times She broke my heart I haven’t been the same since and that was almost three months ago No, I don’t forgive my mother She is not a mother She was an accomplice to my abuser She neglected me She didn’t care and only loved herself She was scared But I was too