Coming of age

As a kid I always imagined how my life would be like

How I’d turn out to be

The unexpected happened

Life is the unexpected

Never would I have thought my life would be full of an unbearable amount of pain

My fathers bar

My fathers bar

Oh how I wish to never go back to my fathers bar

My brother and I only had each other

Having to awaken to our “father”

The same mans doin that caused us nothing but pain

The same man Who left us forever scarred

The same man that starved his children For days

The same man that tossed me over the cemetery wall as if I was a Sack of rice

I then jumped as high as I could

All I could see is the the back of his head as I seen him walking away

I continuously shouted out for him

“Maybe he will come back for me”

Kept replaying over and over again

In my head

I remembered being so scared

Trying to climb over that tall brick wall

But I just couldn’t

Dropped to my knees and cried

Hoping that a mothers intuitions would kick in and she would come safe me

Fending for ourselves we were

We were malnourished as ever

Undernourished is how we lived

A nightmare is how we lived

Scrawny

Skin and bones

Is the first thing people saw when looking at us

The pain that reflected in our eyes as if we were some lost puppies looking for comfort and warmth

Looked for comfort and peace in each other

We only had each other

My brother is my best friend

My fathers bar

My fathers bar

Older men drinking their sorrows away

Older men who felt empowered to touch my body as if I was an object

Wanting me to be submissive he was

Wanting me to bow before him

I could see his eyes filled with hate and misery

Stuck is how felt

As my tears streamed down my cheek

Hyperventilating I was

trying to gain control of my breathing

So confused and scared but was old enough to understand what was happening at that moment

I then shouted from the top of my lungs with everything I had my voice cracks as the words “HE’S TOUCHING ME’ comes out of my mouth

The words I spoke to my father were lies so he said

Punishing me he was for “lying” and saying such things of his beloved friend

Crying out I was

How could it be that his beloved friend was the victim

Mute is how we stayed

The unbearable amount of pain we took on as a child was one no child should ever take on

We went through things

Always opened up about things to our father

But the words we filled his ears with were lies as he said

Punishing us in ways you wouldn’t imagine

Lost myself at my fathers bar

Home never felt like home

Instead of what was suppose to be the greatest time of our lives with our father

It was a prison sentence

Use to pray for our mother to come and safe us from this nightmare

Know life was different back then in the Dominican Republic

We lived in a poverty stricken community

Life was hard

Fending for ourself is how we lived indeed

After what felt like years

A short bald headed man I had never seen before approached us with our mother

After what felt like a lifetime without our mother she was finally in front of us

I could only imagine the pain she must’ve felt seeing her children for the first time in a longtime look like a couple of stray dogs

Like a hero wearing a cape as cheesy as that may sound he took us and we never looked back

After what felt like a century of misery

We were finally free

Mom did it with this one she fell for a man that not only protected us but gave us the love we had never gotten from our father

Know my whole story is untold

And I might’ve lost myself at my fathers bar

But I gained something no one can ever take from me

Clarity

Humbleness

Loyalty

Not only did all the traumatic events that filled our lives made me realize what truly matters to me more than anything that’s my family but it also made me realize I’m worth so much more

I’d never let a coward of a man belittle me

Make me feel unworthy

Did too much and shed too much tears to let it define us and bring us down

Embraced our scars and stayed true

I’d be lying if I said the pain stopped there

my life has been filled with traumatic events but this forever changed me and I am as strong as I am today because I got through this so I can get through anything

God how much I wish the pain would’ve

stopped there but the unexpected happened

life is the unexpected.