The Silence Is Deafening

I remember the first time you laid devastating hands on me.

I laid there still & quiet with your beer-stained hand over my mouth; allowing silent tears to spill down my cheeks, onto the pillowcase, into my hair.

I remember the bruises on my arms & the fingerprints left around my neck. I remember being unable to move or breathe or speak. But I remember your words more. Sentences I have never forgotten. And as you drifted off to sleep; I broke. Who knew silence could be so deafening?

For years, I carried those words with me everywhere. Settling in the pit of my stomach. Stitched into the deepest fibers of my soul. I tucked them away into empty pockets & hidden spaces; keeping them around solely to whisper into my ear on dark nights when you left me feeling worthless & damaged.

You degraded the most feminine parts of me. The ones that loved, trusted, empathized, believed, cherished. I felt lost, like the pieces of my femininity that were created for me somehow became part of you; never allowed to be mine again. You stripped me bare & left next to nothing for me to collect for myself. I was tainted.

It took years to look myself in the mirror & realize we were separate entities. You are not me, & I am not you. And though your heavy words left heavier scars, I am still full of power. Courage. Resilience. I am allowed to remember your sin & still value my skin.

And so I picked up shards of my past self, little by little, & tirelessly glued them back together. Piece by piece. One by one. Until I somewhat resembled myself again.

The same, but also vastly different. Like unraveling a spool of thread & trying to reel it all back in. It’s never the same again, but it’s whole nonetheless.

I am a unique work of art. A mosaic; compiled of chipped tiles & jagged edges. But when placed in front of the light, fills the room with the most beautiful array of colors your eyes have ever seen.

Though I have walked through fire, my entire being scorched & singed, I was born from the ashes & made new.

And I will never again question my worth because a small-minded man placed his greedy hands where they didn’t belong.