power redistributed

This morning when I was getting dressed in the morning I noticed something. The scar below my breast is so faded it’s almost invisible. The scar from when they saved my lung from being punctured by one of the three ribs you broke when you beat me so bad, I was in the hospital for two weeks. When I think about it, I really don’t know how you had so much control over me. Do you know how weak I must’ve been to allow you to own me? Everyday you controlled what I said and wore and even what I thought. You changed the way I saw myself even when I wasn’t with you. I was terrified of you. My captor. Terrified that if I said the wrong thing or did something to annoy you that that would be the day you killed me. A shake? No big deal. A slap? I’m ok. I took them as signs of your love. The real damage was on the inside. I didn’t know how to think for myself. I had no experience because every time I had an opinion that differed from yours, you erased it. So away went my personality until I was a ball of clay, to be molded to your liking. I feared your strength but when it was time to answer for what you’d done you took the easy way out. You were gone but it was never over for me. For the better part of three years I allowed you to ridicule me, yell at me, shame me, and beat me until you owned me. And I will never give a man that kind of power ever again.