Love Was...

The struggle of a child born to drug addicted parents. **Trigger Warning: Mention Of Child Abuse**

**Trigger Warning: Mention Of Child Abuse**

Music Choices:
• Concrete Angel - Martina McBride
•Broken Wing - Martina McBride
•For The Love Of A Daughter - Demi Lovato

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From a young age, I never knew what Love was. I never felt the warmth of a mother’s kiss or the strength of a father’s hug. I heard yelling and screaming. I saw fists raised and bloody noses. I felt cigarette burns on my back and bruises on my arms. I smelled whiskey and drunken idiots passed out in the family bathroom. I knew not to go into the living room when dad had his drug buddies over. I knew never to let my sister leave our room when our parents began to beat each other.

But I did not know Love.

To me, Love was when my father beat me for angering his new girfriend. Love was being abandoned on my mother’s doorstep when my father wanted to get high. Love was my mother forgetting we existed while she got drunk with her boyfriends. Love was meeting a new woman every night at my father’s house. Love was hiding in crawl spaces with my sister to avoid his violent girlfriend. Love was my kitten getting killed because my dad owed the landlord drug money. Love was feeding cats for a measly dollar to feed my sister. Love was going without food for days in a row. Love was being molested by my mother’s boyfriend. Love was having a knife to my throat as my father was threatened. Love was crying to myself at night as my sister slept, praying and hoping for a new life.

But most of all...love was being taken away from my family after years of misery... and still begging to stay.

Because no matter how much pain and misery my parents put us through, they were still our parents. And if they didn’t want us... then who would?

-before the age of nine