Warning: The author has noted that this contains the highest level of violence.
Warning: The author has noted that this contains the highest level of language.
Three sisters born two years apart,
They tucked themselves into one bed,
With shaking limbs and pounding heart,
Their thoughts were filled with awful dread.
Trapped inside
And they cried
Gotta hide
Terrified
Violence seeps and to covered ears
The broken plates and pounding fists
Solidify their valid fears
That danger reigns where they exist.
So enraged
Hate assuaged
Disengaged
Children caged
As they grow, the threat grows nearer.
Attacks on Mom have finally spread,
Their options, though, have grown no clearer
And soon he'll come for them instead.
Others blind.
Guard your mind
From evil kind
They're resigned.
That first night when Satan came
He chose one daughter as his mark,
He laughed as though it was a game
Left them cowering in the dark.
So alone.
Worth unknown.
Stick and stone
Fiercely thrown.
Pillows pressed on pretty faces;
Girlhood games of gun roulette;
Injuries and hidden places;
Maybe he will break them yet.
Punch and hit.
Curses spit.
This is shit.
Make him quit.
Years go by with no relief.
Someday we will all escape.
Hanging onto this belief,
That our lives can take new shape.
Hope and pray
For that day.
We will stray
Far away.
One by one they leave their prison
Childhood pain put on their shelves.
Into their own lives they had risen
Landing new hell for themselves.
Constriction
Restriction
Affliction
Addiction
They carried spirits, bent and broken
Into worlds they thought were free,
But childhood horrors left unspoken
Maintained a family's legacy.
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Author Notes
This poem is about my three younger cousins who lived next-door to me growing up. I knew their father was mean, but as a child myself, I did not realize the extent of his behavior until we all grew up and talked about it. In only the last few years in our 40s, did they confide everything.
This poem was written with their permission, but none of the three have been able to read it yet.
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