This Is How I Remember It

I remember the door.

How it slammed just before he did.

How I flinched before the blow,

already knowing it was coming.

How I learned the warning signs

better than my own name.

I remember her eyes,

how they darted away —

not in shock,

but in silence.

The kind that said:

this is your fault.

Again.

I remember the sting.

Not just the slap,

but the hours after,

where no one came.

Where no one held me.

Where I was sent to my room

to cry out of sight.

I remember how he’d say

I made him do it.

That if I just learned quicker,

he wouldn’t lose his temper.

That men have limits,

and girls like me

push them.

I remember learning

to tiptoe across the kitchen.

To read moods like forecasts.

To say “I’m sorry”

before I’d even done anything.

I remember bruises

that didn’t show right away.

And the fear that did.

I remember wishing

I could disappear

without dying.

And I remember the moment

I stopped asking her to see me.

Stopped hoping

she’d put her body

between his and mine.

This is how I remember it—

not with confusion,

but with clarity.

Not in whispers,

but in the ache

of every quiet moment

no one called it what it was.

And then they told me—

I remembered it wrong.

That it wasn’t like that.

That it didn’t happen.

That I was too sensitive.

Too dramatic.

Too young to understand.

But I do.

And I did.

This is how I remember it.

Because it’s how it was.