You take a deep breath of the fresh crisp air. The sky is a light pinkish. The sun has just started to creep up. You’re walking your beautiful daughter to school. Every step your daughter takes is filled with giggles and joy. You look at her smile and all of your problems melt away. You would do anything for her to keep that smile. For a moment the world seems to be a timeless beautiful place.

It all happened so quickly.

You hear a yell and before you can turn around you feel your face hit the ground hard. Tears are streaming down your face. All of your daughter’s joy has disappeared and is now replaced with horror. That’s when you remember. You remember why you left. You remember the scars that you’ve tried to scrub off. You remember how no matter how good you were, no matter how much you pleaded he was relentless in his beatings. You remember not being able to see because of the black eyes he gave you. You remember the shame you felt looking at your children, wondering why you couldn’t give them a better life.

So with great courage you get up. You are standing tall facing him. For one second, you are in control. You are powerful. You are brave.

He grabs the acid from on top of the hood of his car. He grabs you by the hair tightly and starts pouring it down your face. It starts from the right side of your face. It’s bubbling. Your face is bubbling, boiling rather. Your heart is beating out of your chest. Your hands are shaking. You have never felt such intense pain in all of your life. Your face is dissolving, you can feel it vanishing. As the acid seeps down onto your stomach and your right leg you feel the pain grow. It is a type of unexplainable pain, one that will haunt you for the rest of your life. You look at your hands. What used to be skin is just flesh. You can feel the acid eating away at your skin, and then your muscle. Before your ex-husband rushes away in his car you catch a glimpse of yourself in the car window. You look like a zombie. There is simply no other way to put it. Your eyelids have disintegrated so your eyes are bulging out. You are covered in blood. Your face, it ceases to exist.

Your body is his canvas. His fists are his brushes. Your bruises and blood are the splattered paint.

Your body. It’s so many different colors. Black and blue from the bruises. Red from the blood. White from your mama.

Your body. It’s so interesting. The way it curves. Curvy with bumps from the long and painful punches you had to endure. Indents from the time he pushed your ribs so they were on top of each other.

You look down at your arm. You see a long scar stretching from your wrist to your elbow.

You remember that day.

It was a Thursday night. The middle of winter. He had just had too much to drink. You guys got into an argument about his job. He was so angry. He had this fury in his eyes. You had already forgiven him so many times. My God it’s impossible to count the amount of times he would say I love you and try to use those words as a bandage for the cuts he made on your skin. But he never understood. Bandages are no use for bullet holes.

His fury overtook him. That’s what you do. You convince yourself that it was his anger that hurt you, not him. He grabbed the glass that was sitting on the kitchen counter and threw it at your feet. You screamed and fell down to the floor trying to attend to your wounds. He yelled words that cut deeper into you than any knife could. As you desperately tried to crawl away his fist came down upon you with the might of a thousand swords. You’re desperately trying to get away when a glass shard finds its way into your wrist. Before you have the chance to remove it another fist comes crashing down. Attempting to avoid the hit you try to crawl to safety. You hardly notice the glass shard that found its way into your skin. The shard makes it’s way from your wrist to the inside of your elbow. It makes a stream of blood that never seemed to end. It was a river of blood.

You close your eyes tight.

You can never stop reliving the memories. Each one has left a special mark on your body.

Each one is just a different drop of paint on the canvas.

Both of these stories are true. They are real. Stories of people I have met and seen with my own eyes.

I know they are not your stories. I know this is simply an author using second person to make you feel as if these are your stories. But what if they were?

We are all brothers and sisters in humanity. Domestic abuse is a human problem and we are all humans.

Today, I am calling upon your humanity. I am calling upon your compassion, your kindness, and your ability to stand up for what is just.

“Tolerance of injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” -Martin Luther King

Don’t condone this injustice with your silence.

If you can donate I’m including reliable non-profits you can donate to.

If you can not donate, raise awareness in your community. Share this article. Reach out to a friend if you see he or she is struggling. This is an issue we should all be standing in unison against. This is an issue that needs to be changed. This is an issue that can change, starting with you.

Acid Crime:

http://www.depilexsmileagain.com

Domestic Abuse:

http://mnadv.org

http://reachma.org

http://nomore.org/donations/

http://www.joyfulheartfoundation.org