What We Never Sat Down to Say — Part II
“Truth doesn’t ask permission. It asks for responsibility.”
You told me my family hates me.
My children hate me.
Your family hates me.
Your mother couldn’t stand me.
The truth is —
I loved all of them.
Until I stopped listening.
Until I stopped letting your experience
rewrite our reality.
You learned how to isolate pieces —
delicate ones —
and tear them apart.
I said things I didn’t mean.
But I meant the pain.
My words fought back
when my fists should have stayed still.
You were right to say I wasn’t shit —
because I hit you.
I abused because I was abused.
That explains nothing.
It excuses nothing.
But the truth doesn’t stop there.
You were abusive too —
to me,
and to our children.
I remember the day clearly.
The screaming.
The crying.
The yelling.
A child slapped for not listening.
Breath knocked out of a body
that trusted us.
I reacted.
Violently.
Protectively.
Wrongly.
But hear me when I say this:
Do not ever harm my children.
Do not ever touch them in anger.
I will choose consequence
before I choose silence.
That’s not pride.
That’s a boundary written in bone.
This is not a victory story.
This is a reckoning.
And reckoning is where healing either begins —
or never does.
