Battered

Published on by J. Kelland Perry

If I have a choice, what do I choose
do I escape this place, do I run away
as far as no one can find me?
I have been struggling,
can’t settle down –
the cuts are deep. I try to heal
but it is hard to heal a hurt
deeper than the ocean.
I try but none of this is easy,
not as easy as bleeding words
angry, messed up,
stillborn on a white page.
How I feel nobody knows;
no one understands what
I have lived. Sometimes I hope
for a deep sleep and never
never wake up,
a kind of running away
from a sour reality.
But somehow I endure
suppress the hurts
pretend nothing is wrong.
Easy to say, isn’t it?
I cannot cry. I turn my face away
when he comes in,
hide the tears, hide the pain –
I’m afraid
they will inflame and
invite his fist again.

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40 thoughts on “Battered”

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      1. I think for me,it will never be fully over. I can heal and lead a better life, but there will always be residual damage that anyone would have to cope with.
        God is a part of my life too, but he never promised it would be easy.

        I believe baring a miracle, the only way to heal is to work hard in therapy.
        We can’t sweep it under the carpet. It won’t go away, it will only get bigger.

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        1. In your case, I think the scars run deeper because you were a child, not to mention how your parents, the people who should have protected you, betrayed you. But yes, there is healing. I hope you come out of this alright. Hugs!!!

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  8. Yeah I have lived in it, it is not nice.
    Sorry I asked xx I had to.
    And yeah it happens still…Why?

    I am always around.
    Shaun

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  12. I found you through Ionia. I know this touches a chord with so many! My husband and I were musing on Easter Sunday of the Easter in 1978 when we woke up to find our sweet neighbor shivering on our step after her husband beat her for not hanging up his trousers and then threw her out in the cold of a New York night. Of course she went back to him after we took her to the ER, and of course he did it again. We finally moved, and I never learned what became of her, but I’ve often wondered through the years.

    Many, many years later I had the chance to help my sister escape from the husband who was emotionally abusing her and who had torn her down until my beautiful, vibrant sister was a shadow of herself. By God’s grace, cancer finally took him before he could actually do her any physical harm, but she and her children will bear the emotional scars to the end of their days. I like to think there’s a specially hot corner in hell reserved for men like these two. Does that make me an evil person? I don’t know; I just know that all I can do is pick up whatever pieces I can and trust God to do the rest.

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    1. Thank you for commenting.
      This is the saddest part: returning to the abusive relationship, and it often happens many times before the necessary break is finally made. Only a tiny fraction of abusers will change, so this is an unrealistic hope.
      I don’t think what you said makes you an evil person, just a concerned and compassionate one. I often think about the poor souls who have no family or friends to help them, nowhere to turn when they need a safe haven.

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  13. “I cannot cry I turn my face away
    when he comes in
    hide the tears
    hide the pain
    I’m afraid
    they will inflame”
    Very powerful words.
    You have captured the essence of this terrible issue in your words.

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    1. Thank you, Elizabeth. It is a difficult issue to write about, but an important one to discuss and raise awareness. We need to be doing whatever we can to protect others and to promote zero tolerance for domestic violence.

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  14. Jennifer, your poem is SO on time for a good friend of mine who just expressed to me today that she wants:
    ” a deep sleep and never
    never wake up
    a kind of running away too
    from sour reality…”
    She was savagely beaten by her boyfriend. I will share your words/poem with her. I attempted to do justice to this topic of violence against women in my novel, Lime. We must make our/their voices known. Thank you!

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