22d • General discussion
I Warned you…..
And there is one night
I will never be able to erase.
Not because I want to remember it—
but because my body remembers
what my heart wishes it could forget.
Two days after I finally opened up and told you, I was raped,
Two days after I’m telling you, I was raped
after you said those cruel things to me,
after you told me I was ugly,
I wanted liked it
after you told me I had wanted it, after you felt I I allowed to myself to be defaulted
after you made me feel filthy
for something that was done to me—
you looked at me
and somehow believed
you were entitled to me too.
Because I’m your wife ????
You didn’t ask.
You didn’t care
what my body had just survived.
You didn’t stop to wonder
To wonder
whether I was terrified.
Whether I was hurting.
Whether I was even capable
of wanting anyone to touch me.
You simply took
what you wanted.
And afterward—
you chuckled.
You turned your back to me.
And went to sleep.
I lay there curled into myself
like a child trying to disappear.
Crying.
Quietly.
Broken.
And you knew.
You knew I was crying.
You knew I was hurting.
You knew what had happened to me
And still—
you turned over.
Two minutes later,
I heard you snoring.
Snoring.
While I lay there
trying to understand
how the person beside me
could hear my pain
and sleep through it.
Do you know what that did to me?
Do you know what happens
inside a woman
when the person she once trusted
Loved…..
can look at her suffering
and simply roll over?
Something dies.
Not the body.
Something deeper.
The illusion.
The belief that
my man would protect me.
The belief that
my children’s father would understand.
My Husband
The belief that
the person lying beside me
was my safe place.
That night
I didn’t just look at you differently.
I began asking myself
how I could ever look at you
the same way again.
How could I look at you
and see the man
I once loved?
How could I look at you
and see the father
I wanted my children
to admire?
How could I look at you
and tell my daughters
that she deserves a man
who protects her heart
when the man beside me
was breaking mine?
How could I tell my children
that love is supposed to feel safe
when I was lying beside their father
afraid, crying,
trying to make myself smaller
so I could survive another night?
How?
Tell me—
how was I supposed
to wake up the next morning
and pretend everything was normal?
How was I supposed
to kiss you?
How was I supposed
to smile at you?
How was I supposed
to call you my man?
How was I supposed
to look into your eyes
and forget that while I was
curled up crying,
you were sleeping peacefully?
I couldn’t.
Something inside me
had already seen the truth.
And once you see the truth,
you can’t unsee it.
I had loved you
with a love so deep
it embarrassed me.
I had defended you.
Believed you.
Forgiven you.
Carried your children.
Carried your secrets.
Carried your pain.
And somehow
I carried mine too.
But there is only so much
a woman can carry
before her knees give out.
I warned you.
I warned you
when you hurt me.
I warned you
when you humiliated me.
I warned you
when you betrayed me.
I warned you
when your words became weapons.
I warned you
when your hands became something
I feared.
I warned you
when I cried.
I warned you
when I begged.
I warned you
when I told you
that one day
I would stop caring.
And you kept believing
I would always be there.
You thought my love
made me powerless.
You didn’t understand
that love was the very thing
I kept using
to give you another chance.
Until I had no more chances
left to give.
So when you ask me
why I changed—
remember that night.
Remember the woman
curled up beside you.
Remember her tears.
Remember how easily
you fell asleep
while she was breaking.
And then ask yourself
why she eventually
stopped seeing you
as the man she once loved.
Because I didn’t stop loving
all at once.
I lost pieces of that love
one wound at a time.
One betrayal at a time.
One tear at a time.
One warning at a time.
Until one day
I looked at you
and realized—
I was no longer looking
at my safe place.
I was looking at
the person I had survived.
And that is a truth
you cannot lie away.
You cannot argue it away.
You cannot call me crazy
for remembering it.
You cannot call me a liar
because I finally found
the courage to say it out loud.
I remember.
My body remembers.
My heart remembers.
And God knows
what happened to me.
So don’t ask me
why I don’t look at you
the same anymore.
Ask yourself
what you did
to make me stop.
Because I warned you.
And warned you.
And warned you.
Until the woman
who once begged you
to love her correctly
finally learned
that she could love herself
enough to stop begging.
I am not the woman
who lay beside you
that night anymore.
She survived.
She got up.
She is still breathing.
And she is learning
that what happened to her
does not get to decide
who she becomes.
You may have broken
the woman you knew.
But you did not destroy her.
You only introduced her
to the woman
she would eventually become.
And Johnny—
that woman is me.
Hey babe, one more thing maybe two out of everything I’ve gone through with you. This has topped at all. Just remember I kept telling you I kept warning just now. I don’t want no bad on you. I know I was never perfect but this is one thing that you should always remember, I warned you
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I Warned you…..
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