Seems like yesterday - MYSTIC
It seems like yesterday that the air in our house was thick,
so thick I could choke on it before breakfast.
My father’s voice
sharp as broken glass,
louder than any thunder I’d ever heard.
He didn’t just speak.
He carved.
He carved his anger into walls,
into skin,
into silence.
It seems like yesterday I was small enough to hide, but never small enough to escape.
I pressed myself into corners,
made myself paper-thin,
thinking maybe if I was quiet enough,
still enough,
he’d forget I was there.
But monsters don’t forget.
They feed.
It seems like yesterday
your hands, Mother,
were shaking over a sink of dishes,
eyes glazed,
voice swallowed whole.
I didn’t understand it then, how survival can look like surrender,
how sometimes staying feels safer than running.
I thought your silence meant I wasn’t worth saving.
But now I see,
you were trapped too.
You were breaking too.
And in your own way,
you were teaching me to live through it.
It seems like yesterday I blamed myself.
For his rage.
For your tears.
For the nights that stretched like an ocean
with no shore in sight.
Children always think it’s their fault.
Always think if they just smile harder,
cry softer,
breathe quieter,
that they can turn a monster into a man.
But no smile,
no silence,
no shrinking could save me.
I know that now.
It seems like yesterday that I carried shame like a second skin,
Like a secret tattoo only I could see.
But scars aren’t shame,
they’re survival stories,
they’re proof I lived through the fire and didn’t let it burn me down.
It seems like yesterday,
but yesterday is gone.
And me?
I’m still here.
I’m still standing.
Every breath I take is rebellion,
every heartbeat is proof,
that his shadow didn’t win.
It seems like yesterday that I was a child in the dark.
It seems like today that I am the light.
It seems like tomorrow that I will build a home where love doesn’t hurt,
where silence doesn’t stain,
where children sleep without fear and wake without scars.
It seems like yesterday that I was broken.
It seems like today that I am whole.
It seems like tomorrow that I will rise again,
and again,
and again.
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