I stood there, small and brittle, in the shadow of your rage. You, the goliath of my nightmares, towering over me with fists clenched—not always in your hands, but in your words, in the way you crushed me with a look, a silence. I learned the art of shrinking early, back when I was just a child hiding from the heavy footfalls in the hallway, from the door that creaked open with the weight of what you’d do next.
Back then, I thought the world was made of your anger, that I was born into it like a storm you could never quite let pass. I was taught to be quiet, to keep my eyes low, because looking up might invite the wrong kind of attention. And the blows came, sometimes in the form of hands, sometimes in the form of words so sharp they carved into me long after the bruises faded. I swallowed it whole, believing that somehow, it was my fault. That I was born to be broken.
What is it about childhood abuse that makes you feel like you’re never allowed to grow? Like your roots were snapped before they could dig into the earth, leaving you stunted, a permanent child in a world that demands you be something more. I learned fear before I learned trust. I learned to flinch before I learned to speak up. My whole body became a survival tactic.
But I grew anyway, despite you. I learned to put words to what you did, to confront the ghost of you that still hovered over my shoulder long after I left your house. I used to think confrontation was a war I couldn’t win, that I would always be that small, helpless child, curled up in the corner of my own mind.
But surviving abuse teaches you the shape of your own power. It doesn’t come in grand gestures or loud declarations. It comes in the quiet refusal to be made small again, the decision to stand even when your legs feel like glass. I no longer let the version of me you created hold sway over the woman I’ve become. You tried to erase me, but I’ve learned that surviving is its own form of confrontation. And I am still here, standing, unbroken.
I am small no longer.
B 🤍
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