This poem is part of Migrant Women Press’s 16 days of activism against gender-based violence.
Photo by Kat Love on @Unsplash
Trigger warning: This poem contains references to domestic abuse, which some individuals may find distressing.
I was taken from my mother in hopes of a better life.
My once haven, I knew no more.
I started feeling disconnected from my mother and unloved.
Feeling like an abandoned child, I went out seeking comfort.
Not realising that the comfort I sought was from a living serpent.
Being beaten and abused was no longer a mystery.
Feeling unloved and unwanted almost felt like history.
Something wasn’t right as I was crying myself to bed every night.
No one believes me about the pain I am enduring.
Maybe it is this big, beautiful smile they see me parading.
I’m missing my mother again, where is my mother?
Surely, this is not life.
Where is my white picket fence and a big house that was promised?
Why am I eating plain pasta and only drinking tap water?
My living serpent is always stocked up with his drug of choice.
Oh yes, that’s right, I do not matter.
Where is my mother?
Someone, please bring me back to my mother.
I don’t want to live this life any more.
Enough is enough!
It might have taken ten times, but I finally left this serpent of mine.
I realised all he said was a lie.
Mother still loved me, and I could return home anytime.
Everyone believed me, they even tried to help me.
Even recently, the serpent revealed himself again.
I’m no longer his only victim; he might finally be stopped.
I feel reconnected to my mother and know she will always comfort me.
Char-Lee Lewis is in the final year of her Law PhD at the University of Leicester. This piece reflects her personal experience of domestic abuse. “My mother is a metaphor for my safe space; this includes the country of my birth, my family and friends, etc. I hope ‘my mother’ can translate to others, including the victims of domestic abuse, and provide them with some comfort.”