The Weight She Made Me Carry

The poem I wrote is one of the many ways I’ve tried to process something that never should have happened to a child. I was just a kid. But the adults around me—those who were supposed to protect me—didn't just fail me. They turned their backs entirely and handed me the blame.

He was too old. I was too young. That’s the truth. There’s no confusion, no gray area, no excuse. But when it happened, my mother didn’t report it. She didn’t fight for me. She didn’t shield me. Instead, she blamed me. She said it was my fault. She claimed I must have “asked for it.” That kind of cruelty is impossible to forget—and nearly impossible to carry alone.

Looking back, I’ve started to piece together why she responded that way. Why she dismissed my pain. Why she looked the other way. Why she let it happen and then told me it was me who should be ashamed.

My mother had her own secrets—ones she buried so deep, they rotted everything around her, including me. When she got pregnant with me, she was an adult. My father was a minor. She married him, and I believe she did that to avoid legal consequences. To hide what she had done. And instead of confronting that truth, she redirected her shame onto me. My very existence reminded her of what she had to cover up. So she punished me for being born.

Years later, my father repeated the same pattern. He did what was done to him—and he went to prison for it. The cycle repeated itself, except this time, someone finally faced the consequences. But when it came to me, no one did. Not him. Not her.

There’s something twisted about a mother who protects herself before she protects her child. She didn't report what happened to me not just because she didn’t believe me—but because deep down, she didn’t want to face her own guilt. Reporting it would have forced her to look at herself. It would’ve reminded everyone of what she did to my father, and what she tried to bury when she married him. So instead, she convinced herself that I was the problem.

She never wanted me in the first place. That much she made clear in so many ways—her words, her neglect, her coldness, her resentment. I became the scapegoat for everything she hated about her own life. Everything she couldn't outrun.

But here's what I’ve learned: I am not her shame. I am not her failure. I am not the blame she forced me to carry for what they did to me.

Yes, I lost my innocence. Yes, I was violated, neglected, and silenced. But I also survived. And I continue to fight—not just for the child I was, but for the adult I’m becoming. I speak because no one else did. I heal because I refuse to let her silence define me anymore. I write because my truth is worth more than her lies.

And even though she never stood up for me—I’m standing up for myself now.

That is the justice I deserve from the weight she made me carry. That is the justice I will continue to seek.