By A Common Woman
I grew up with violence pressed into my skin.
Not from war outside, but from a man inside our home. My father. A monster dressed as a man.
I press this sentence into you like a blade and you fall out of my life with one touch.
You do not get to be my father anymore.
You put your weight on my throat once, the pain tasted copper-like, your weight crushing my neck with your leg like you wanted to erase me. I woke up on the floor with my mouth full of blood, my body forgetting how to trust air and the room smelled of fear and terror. You spat words that burrowed under my skin and taught me to shrink.You called me, my mother and my grandmother a whore while you owned the shame you deserved and hid your lies beneath your pillow. Those words were weapons meant to strip us of our names. They did not strip us. They exposed you.
You painted our lives with shame while you locked your own betrayals behind closed doors. You cheated on my mom. Lied to her. You chose to be small and cruel again and again.
Do not tell me the bottle made you do it. Do not tell me anger is an excuse. A man who raises his hand, who names and breaks and hides, chose every time he hit, screamed, or cheated. Choice is the only place to find responsibility. You know what you did. Your cowardice has a name. It is yours. I carry disgust in my body. My skin crawls at the thought of sharing your blood. I didn’t choose you. I was forced into this tie, and I will spend my life cutting away the parts of you that tried to grow inside me.
I grew up with nausea in my body that could not be named. As a child I felt the small crookedness behind your smiles. My gut kept a ledger before I had words. Today that ledger has been proved. You were cheating. The man who spat filth at us was the one living in filth. The one who named us shame was the one who betrayed vows.
Hypocrisy is your second skin. You wear it well.
Hear this plainly. You are not a tragic figure. You are not misunderstood. You are a man who chose violence and betrayal. Name that and it loses its power. The truth strips you down faster than your excuses could.
You have taught me how to survive. Now I will teach myself how to live. My voice will not soften to make you comfortable. My words will not be trimmed for your remorse. I am not asking for your redemption. I am reclaiming my life.
To the girls who still flinch at the sound of footsteps:
I am you. You learned to read the room like the weather. You learned silence as a survival skill. You learned to braid apologies into your laugh so that the house would not explode. You are not invisible. Your body remembers what your mouth could not name. That memory is not a shame. It is proof.
To the women who stay because leaving feels like losing everything:
I see the quiet calculations you make. Money, children, the slow erosion of confidence. Staying is not a moral failure. It is a strategy in a system that gives women nothing for choosing themselves. If and when you leave, I will not ask how brave you are. I will ask how I can stand with you.
To the men who watch and look away:
Your silence is a choice too. You teach monsters to keep their masks. You teach daughters to swallow. If you cannot stand with the woman in front of you, then at the very least do not teach her the language of protectionlessness.
This is not a plea. This is a reckoning. I will not frame my survival as a gratitude for being spared. I will not tuck my story into polite language so bystanders can nod and move on. I carry bruises that have names, I carry nights when I thought breath would stop. I carry anger that tastes like iron. I carry hunger that will not be sated by apologies.
I refuse to let this definition of manhood live inside me. I will refuse the inheritance of silence.
To every survivor who thinks their voice does not matter:
Your voice is a blade that frees the next girl. Use it. Use it like a wound turned into light. Use it until the world learns to listen and to act.
I am not a victim. I am a witness. I will speak until the world remembers what the fists tried to erase.
🖇️Lots of love and courage.
