Poem - "Domestic Violence"

Domestic Violence

It was just me and him.
There were no children
Caught in the crossfire
As there are with so many others.
That was one blessing.

Another was that there was genuine love
Mixed into our mutual mental illnesses.
I was sick before I met him
And he was sick before he met me
And that was our bond.
We walked down the path
Towards some hellish realms,
But even there the sun streamed in
And there was peace and beauty.

I had not been raped
As a child and adolescent,
But he had.
I was not alcoholic,
I had not murdered,
But he had.
He gave me his secrets
And I was bent over
With the weight of them.

He initiated me into his world
Where cyclical abuse was the norm.
At the bottom of the cycle
He embraced the persona
Of the blonde haired Aryan Nazi
Remorseless in judgment
High on the power
Walking the tightrope
Emulating his childhood abuser.

In this technicolor drama
I was the pawn for a crazy king
Easily sacrificed for the war
That raged in his mind.

He opened a door for me
And I walked through it
To see the countless faces
Of boys struggling to be men
In a world where masculinity
Is marred by warped standards
Of emotional repression
And glorified aggression.

How can we as a culture
Be surprised that so many
Cross the line into violence?
Violence numbs the heart
For those who live it
And those who receive it.
The heart is our only compass.
Remove that compass
And we are lost
In the acres and acres
Of a man made wilderness.


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