« When you come to the edge of all of the light you’ve known and are about to drop off into the darkness of the unknown, faith is knowing one of two things will happen. You’ll have something solid to stand on or you’ll be taught to fly » Patrick Overton
This poem was inspired by a small exchange about abuse and how difficult it was to understand the victim’s stance. I therefore thought I should shed some light albeit in a poetic way from my own experience of how it happens and why one accepts it for so long. I guess it is simply the safe havens that we create which allow the experience to last, some sort of dissociation from what is happening in reality. I was not sure I should add this comment but I realised that the perspective of the subject of abuse seems really hard to grasp and readers don’t seem to have understood what this poem was about mainly. Perhaps my writing is too cryptic sometimes.
Just to reassure you, I am no longer in that kind of situation anymore and usually now smell abusers from a distance. In the self-preservation mode now, I have also severed relationships which might have been good but my principle has always been if he cannot control anger, bitterness or cannot handle stress, that is -even though slight and even though it may absolutely not be directed towards me – an indication that he has the potential of an abuser and I shy away even from that potential these days. Peace, kindness, compassion, humour and love are the only baggage I am willing to accept in any relationship and those who have not worked on themselves enough to have developed these traits are a total no-go for me, except in the cases of a friend in need of course.
