Ava Kadence Jennings

This poem is the most personal thing I could write for everything that is going on in my life right
now. It tells a story about my life, focusing on the struggles more than happiness. The story is
about domestic violence in my family and how I have had to cope with that. It covers not only
the harm done by the abuser, but also the harm I have done to myself and the effect other people
have made on my life in dealing with these problems. As there are people in my life that have
recently tried to help me and done so successfully, there are also people who have only asked
“Are you okay?” when it made them seem like a hero, which is discussed in the poem as
someone trying to put my life back together like a puzzle. Good or bad, this poem allowed me to
tell a story that was too hard to put into plain words.

One of the main themes I have in my poem surrounds a house. Since my poem is about domestic
violence, I wanted to set the scene in a home to represent that part of the story. This is used in
parts of the poem where I talk about hiding things from people you love so they don’t see the
pain you’re in, specifically when it says, “I tried to sweep this under the rug/ Shove it into the
closet/ Up into the attic with the dust and forgotten/ Put it under my pillow/ Hell, put it under my
bed/ Set my diary on the bookshelf (apparently it’s entertaining)”. Whether what you’re hiding is
a physical object that would allow people to see what’s wrong, or they’re feelings you have to
suppress, the idea of having hiding places fits with the theme of the poem. The house is used for
sensory impressions and imagery in other places like when it reads, “Living in a house that
smells of cinnamon”, and “Sorry that I couldn’t keep myself /from bubbling over/ Emotions and
words spilling out”.

I never thought that I would write this poem. I already have a hard enough time telling people
I’m close to that this is happening in my life, much less writing it for anyone to know. I honestly
wrote it because I was mad. There’s a lot of people that like to pretend they care about you only
because it makes them look good, and a lot of those people just happened to be too many of my
friends and peers. I had continuously been pushed by these people, and it was so frustrating to
me that even after I asked for support, or told them what boundaries I have, they continued to
hurt me and then pretend like they were the ones who were helping me heal. I couldn't lash out
or get angry at anyone verbally, so I wrote about it.