As My Children Watched In Horror

A s my children watched in horror their father and step-father beat me

S o many times I can't count how often it happened over the span of both

 

M y marriages

Y ou just don't know the torture and the torment unless you've lived through it

 

C an't give you any good reason of why I stayed with such men

H ell is what they put us through time and time again

I  loved them both too much but didn't love myself enough to leave

L etting go emotionally was what I was unable to do

D rowning in the fear of the next beating I would endure

R epeat offenses against me as they abused me in front of our children

E ndangering their lives as well as my own

N o one knows the horror first-hand as well as they do

 

W aking up in the middle of the night to yelling and screaming voices

A  child's life becomes a constant nightmare

T his happened to my children and I have a hard time forgiving myself

C hildren should never be caught in the mire of

H eated arguments or be forced to endure abuse of any kind

E specially the beatings of their mother or themselves

D eprived of the innocence of youth

 

I  wish I could take it all away but I can't erase it from their memories

N ow that they have grown into adulthood I can see first-hand the damage

 

H as been done and there is no turning back

O ut of the ashes we have risen as a family

R eliving the past at times in the far reaches of our minds

R epentance of the father's comes to no avail

O nly time can heal these wounds, the scars remain

R ankling resentment, embittering the pain, as our children watched in horror 

Reviews

[Pax Analog]

At the end of the violent, all-too-real hallucinatory day, your psychic radio dial was stuck on the wrong station, or between stations, tortured by static, white noise.

I reflect back on the worse I've been any part of -- even the psychic torture of an inability to see eye-to-eye with someone whose opinion one cares too much about is enough! -- and I realize it all passed just like changing the frickin' psychic radio station, whether with the same person or not. This distress is also like being whipped senseless every time storm weather kicks up!

Bottom line is our unconscious complicity in our own suffering has to do with inner and outer frequencies. Not to take anything away from the overboard horror of domestic violence, particularly the psychic (and sometimes physical) scars on the children.

But over and over again I am struck by the radically simple intuition that life-healing wisdom in this world is the absence of grasping. We cease a psychic activity that keeps discord habitual. It may look like we are attached to the wrong men or women, but at bottom we are simply at the mercy of unconscious negativity or there would be no attraction whatsoever to any external agency that keeps crap alive.

Even self-help programs can prolong a central miserable premise: that equanimity is about self-esteem triumphing over poor self-image. I prefer to go farther. The entire conventional self is an illusion. That's a Buddhic observation (for the record, Buddha was not the founder of a religion; he was a THOROUGH cognitive scientist). I don't consider that an unattainable ideal. I consider it a 2500 yr.-old "true normality" in a realm of chronic dissociation all down the line. It's not just the miserable stressed housewife and brood. It's not just the idiotic killer drunk driver. It's SYSTEMIC. Mythic religion presumes to cure a disease it is part of: separation of "lowly self" and "high God." Do we KNOW this? Do we commonly focus on the proposition that GOD IS ALL EXISTENCE ITSELF? What's with all the schizoid partitioning?! What's with all the egregious rationalizing by criminal corporate capitalists that "health care" is about fattening the wallets of Wall St. and weaseling out of paying the good faith claims of those with dire illnesses?

I watch in horror at the "normality" of the rise and fall on the daily news. Even on any calm day, the beast of willfully wrong supposition lurks in the mirror. We have seen the enemy. It is US.

It need not be so.

[Su' Nacnetaf]

"Can't give you any good reason of why I stayed with such men" this line resembles something which many housewives actually live, they don't have a good reason as you say, but somehow they think of themselves as dependent to such men. Very well written, great poem.

[George Love]

Wow! You hit it solidly with this one. Very pointed statements and raw vision of a harsh and harmful world too many people live in every day.

[Brianna Brie]

I wish I could take it all away but I can't erase it from their memories
N ow that they have grown into adulthood I can see first-hand the damage

This is a very powerful write. It flows effortlessly in spite of the structure of an acrostic. I especially liked the stanza about "any good reasons". It is a well thought out piece that shows all aspects of such an ordeal as physical and emotional abuse. Excellent lines above as well. Kudos on putting experience into useful words.

[Just Manoosh]

Although I found this piece gut-wrenchingly sad, what prevails here is a certain amount of adult acceptance. Which in its way leads to you thinking the authors reflection, although hurtful, is also one step closer to inner piece. I certainly do hope so.

An astounding piece, thank for having the courage to write this and sharing.

Love
Mx

nb, the reason is an easy and true one, sigh

[James Paulin]

Childhood memories affect people throughout their lives. Your poem brings back sad reminders for all to many of us. Well done, Debileah.

[An owl on the moon]

This is so powerful... painful to read of the horror... You bring in the vivid nature of this account and we can all read, helpless to reach out... Hope it will give someone else the courage to get through what you did... Just stunned into silence...

[Jon Gary Frost]

This must have been incredibly cathartic. So much pain you've watched and felt. No way to critique something so personal and powerful. You have a strong voice.

I would love to see you throw structure to the wind and write another free-verse piece on this topic. Something tells me it will flow like a river.

Thank you for sharing such a painful part of yourself.

[J Carly]

This is such a powerful poem. I was, and still am, literally in tears. I can relate. Well done, Debileah.

[Lizanne]

Sadness that you and the children lived this life of abuse. Even if they were not physically touched, emotionally it can ruin a person. Happiness for your family escaping. A stirring write about a horrible sin commited against a family. Thank you for exposing this pain, so hopefully others will not enter this situation or continue to live in one with little or no hope. May God bless you and yours.