There are wounds that bleed for people to see and also there are wounds that learn to hide from the sight of people
I am Bisi and this is my short story
I grew up in a small village where everyone knew everyone, where secrets traveled faster than the wind and kindness was supposed to be found within family walls but some homes carried storms no one dared to speak about. Our village was indeed a small world
My grandmother was one of those storms and struggles I prayed silently to overcome her...
People saw an old woman with a walking stick and a weathered smile. They would greet her at the market, praised her wisdom, and admired her age. At the main time what they never saw were the marks she left behind not on my skin, but on my spirit.
The strange thing about cruelty is that it rarely announces itself, it just hides behind ordinary faces and familiar voices and sits beside you at family gatherings and shares meals with those who believe it is harmless.
For years, every word she spoke to me felt like another scratch on a wound that never had time to heal like pouring fuel in a burning fire
"You are not enough."
"You will never amount to anything."
"No one truly wants you."
"Thank God I'm not my daughter, cause i would have regretted bringing you to this world. infact I am a mistake they overlooked" she would say
Actually, the words were invisible, yet they cut deeper than any blade.
I often wondered how someone could wake up every day and choose unkindness. How a heart could become so comfortable inflicting pain that another person's tears became ordinary.
In the village, people called it discipline, I called it survival.
Looking back now, I realise something important, that cruelty is not always loud, sometimes it is a slow, deliberate erosion of someone's confidence, dignity, and hope.
The scars remain, not because I deserved them nor because they were true.
But because wounds inflicted by those who should have loved us often take the longest to heal.
Today, when I remember her, I no longer see the grandmother everyone else admired. I see the lesson she left behind, the marks on my soul that still bleeds...
A reminder to us all, there are some acts that go beyond wickedness, they become a crime against the human heart and though the wounds may no longer bleed, their stories still do, the scars still hurt and it still bleeds
let's stay positive
