He says I don’t listen. That I’m full of excuses. That I do things on purpose. But I’m trying. Even when my brain is fog, even when the world spins louder than my thoughts I’m still trying. But when I tell him, his voice only sharpens. He doesn’t hear me, He never really did. He gambles away our peace horses, numbers, lost money. Mom stretches what's left while he places another bet. I was five When he told me he wished I was never alive, those words cut into me fresh wounds that never heal. I was ten when he pointed a gun at Mom and me the night before Grade 7. And although it had no bullets in it Fear doesn’t need any to lodge itself into a child’s ribs. School pickups were humiliation. Birthdays always ended in tears. He knew how to ruin what should’ve been joy. Now, I cut. My arms, my thighs, even my throat because his words still live there, tight like rope on a noose, even in silence. I don’t do it for attention. I do it because I don’t know how else to get the pain out. Because when i try explain I'm unheard. He says I make things harder than they are. That I choose to fail. But he doesn’t see the little girl in me that tries so hard just to feel safe again, because 3 feels safer than 15 I flinch at footsteps. When he's asleep I go silent not to disrespect him but to survive him. Only Mom sees me. She doesn’t ask me to "get over it." She just stays. Her arms are the only place where I don’t feel like broken glass. I don’t want to die. But I don’t know how to live while the man who hurt me still shares the hallway. And still, I survive. Not for him. But for the pieces of me he never managed to destroy. He'll never change. So I will show him that I can instead.