I forgive you

You came into our ordered lives,
Mum said “now we were a proper family”
That I would be the same as my friends,
But I struggled to adjust, felt so confused,
For nearly ten years it had been just mum and me,
The two of us against the world.

You and mum didn’t rush me,
You accepted I wouldn’t call you dad straight away,
Things started ok, looking back I see now,
It was that cloak of calm that hid the true storm,
Then one day it happened the storm broke,
I don’t remember what I had done,
But the feelings of shock and disbelief still haunt me.

Mum had only ever slapped me on my behind,
And only after I had pushed the boundaries to far,
Being a single parent she must have struggled,
But you didn’t worry where your hand hit,
The red mist of anger took over and grabbed control,
Mum tried to step in but you just said I had to learn.

Then when my sister and brother arrived,
Things just went from bad to worse,
You didn’t understand about the school bullies,
But then that’s cos you were a bully too,
I went to school to learn you said,
At home I was there to help not read and write.

My confidence you stole,
With every sarcastic comment,
Every blow from your hand,
I lost count of how many times,
You caused my nose to bleed,
Yet to the outside world everything was ok.

My step brother came to stay, by twist of fate the same age,
True to form the bully in you showed through,
In your eyes he could do no wrong, he was your flesh and blood,
But me, everything I did was wrong,
Arguments were my fault never anyone else’s,
Only mum was fair, showed she still cared.

As soon as I could, I made my escape,
I knew one day I would have to revisit,
Through the true love of one man,
I began to grow in confidence,
To blossom into the young woman I should be,
With distance between us I could straighten my mind.

Now I have grown have a family of my own,
I can now tolerate you as the man mum married,
I have become a stronger person, I know my own mind,
Yet even now the old insecure me tries to surface,
I have to stop and remind myself how far I have come,
And lock those feelings of terror at the back of my mind.

Its true bullies don’t win in the end, for you see,
I’m a confident outgoing woman, one of life’s survivors,
My feelings toward you have even mellowed,
I have become the stronger one, I see through adult eyes,
You were once big bully of a man, now in your final years,
A shadow of your former self, you sit there.

I will not turn the tables on you, for that is not me,
You may have knocked my confident self,
But confidence can grow again and with it humanity,
You may have treated me wrong but your saving grace is that,
My mother you never struck not even once,
For this reason I forgive you.