With a voice fraught with pain

He told me.

With dull eyes and salty tears

He told me.

With a broken and unnerved soul

He told me.

Of how he was verbally and physically abused

Time and time again

By his wife.

How each time she lost her temper,

It ended up with him getting bruises and black eyes.

How he was pertrified to speak out

Because once he was laughed at by the men of the law.

“How can a woman hit a man?”

That was the question asked.

So he silenced himself.

Never wanting to be an object of ridicule again.

Feeling so helpless,

He kept to himself.

Remembering the words,

“A man doesn’t cry.”

A man must never show emotion.

Otherwise you are weak and not man enough.

And he had to admit to himself,

“What kind of a man is he that he can’t defend himself against a woman?’

But the truth was, he was taught by his father

To never ever lay a hand on a woman.

Violence was never the solution

And it will never be.

He was hurting because

No one was listening.

His heart was bleeding.

And his strength was slowly fading away.

His story was one of misery

Seeking healing.

One of brokenness

Seeking reparation.

With a body so frail,

A soul shaken

And eyes so lifeless

I said to him,

“I believe you.”