I married too young, before my brain was done forming, before I had learned to recognize the difference between love and survival. I mistook chaos for connection, intensity for intimacy, and the way his anger rattled the walls for proof that we belonged together. I thought the storm we created in our home was a kind of passion, that the sparks meant something real. In reality, I was learning the wrong lesson: that turbulence could substitute for tenderness, and fear could masquerade as devotion.
I didn’t see the bars at first. They were invisible, forged slowly, quietly, hidden in routines, in the silence that followed arguments, in the way my own needs began to feel like a crime. I thought I had chosen love, but I had only traded one cage for another, one set of invisible chains for a new kind. Each day I convinced myself that endurance was proof of worth, that survival meant success, and that the fire I carried inside me — the part that longed for freedom — would eventually burn me through.
Sometimes, I would catch a crow watching me from the roof or the tree outside the window. Its black eyes were calm, patient, and unflinching. I imagined it tracing the invisible bars I had locked myself behind, tilting its head as if asking, Do you see them? Do you know you could fly free if you wanted? The crow was quiet, unjudging, a witness to my slow, self-imposed confinement. And yet, in that quiet gaze, I began to feel the ember of myself still alive, still waiting — ready for the day I would finally notice it, step outside the cage, and stretch my wings into the open sky.
leaving isn’t as simple as packing a bag and walking out the door. It’s a process — slow, tangled, and heavy with fear, hope, and confusion. It’s loving the good moments and trying to believe they mean more than the bad ones. It’s thinking you can fix what’s broken if you just love harder, try harder, stay a little longer.
I stayed because I thought love could heal him.
Because I thought maybe if I were quieter, softer, more patient the storms would pass.
Because the cycle of apologies and promises felt like sunlight after days of rain, and I was starving for warmth.
Because I mistook control for protection, chaos for passion, and my silence for peace.
Because I was afraid — not just of him, but of being alone, of starting over, of admitting how bad it had become.
The truth is, abuse doesn’t always start with bruises.
It starts with small things — isolation, jealousy, control disguised as concern. It builds slowly until one day you realize you’ve become a ghost in your own home. You shrink your voice to keep the peace. You measure your words like stepping stones across a minefield.
And still, you stay until the day something inside you whispers, enough.
That whisper becomes a flame. Small at first, but growing stronger each time you remember who you were before the fear.
The crow teaches us to see through illusion to notice what hides in the shadows.
The flame reminds us that even in darkness, something inside us still burns for freedom.
Leaving wasn’t a single act of bravery. It was a thousand tiny choices to believe I deserved more. It was learning that love should never require my silence, my bruises, or my brokenness.
If you’re still there and still trying to make sense of it, know this:
You are not weak for staying. You were surviving the only way you knew how.
And when you are ready, your own flame will guide you out.
🖤
#CrowAndFlame #DomesticViolenceAwareness #HealingJourney #SurvivorStrength #YouAreNotAlone
Crow and Flame 