Abasiama

"You bastard", she spat at me. I wasn't sure I heard her because I was still reeling from the star-counting slap I just received, but I was already familiar with the routine of insults, slap and kicks and the name callings in the order of 'bastard', 'useless child', 'good-for-nothing', 'beast of no gender'. And so, the domestic violence went on and on.

"Will you get on the move and go clear the dishes in the kitchen? Useless child!", she continued. I'm a victim of domestic violence, and this is my story.

This is the life I live, and I've grown to, well, definitely not love it, but I would miss it if I escaped a day without the beatings from mother. Yes, mother. The woman who calls me 'beast of no gender' is my mother. She's not my step-mother nor someone whom I'm just staying with. She's my mother, or so she said.

My ordeal began the day I was born. I grew up living with grandparents, aunties and neighbors. I eventually had to move in with mother because family and friends were tired of taking care of a child whose mother is alive and kicking.

I grew up like that because mother said she hates seeing my face. "Your face reminds me of him and I always want to puke everytime I look at you", she once told me after something you could call an attempted murder. Neighbors came in to rescue me from the claws of mother and one of them was good enough to rush me to the hospital in his car. Mother went in, took a bath for all the sweating and changed her dress. She went into the kitchen to make herself food and carried on with her life like nothing happened.

I was given two 500mls of normal saline drip, some drugs, and was discharged from the hospital the day after. I went into mother's room, cried and begged her to tell me what I had done wrong to make her hate me so much, that was when she said my face reminds her of my father - the one who promised her heaven on earth, claimed to love her, impregnated her, and left her when she told him she was pregnant - and that she won't ever forgive him.

"You look exactly like him. Those eyes, they once looked at me like I'm the only thing that mattered most to him in the world. You have the exact same lips that once told me I was the best thing to happen to him. The mouth that lied to me and the one that told me I was foolish enough to get pregnant outside of wedlock. You walk exactly the same way your father walks, Abasiama. Everytime I look at you, I remember the day your father chased me out of the room where we both made love. How can I not hate you?", mother cried.

And so, it came to be that I'm the product of two adults' mistakes, irresponsibility, and lost love and I have to bear the brunt of the wickedness of my father which was by no fault of mine.

My name is Abasiama, and even though I'm not loved by either of my parents, mother has tried to assure me that I am loved by God by giving me that name. You know, swings and roundabouts. The only silver lining in my almost two decades of living.

I was jolted back into reality by the weight of the frying pan that landed on my nose before hitting the floor. I tasted blood. I'm not good in biology but I'm sure some tissues must have broken in my nose and somehow, I could taste blood in my mouth.

It was mother asking me if I had laundered the clothes and asking if I had done about tens of other chores.

This is my lot and I've learnt to carry my cross. I have to rush down to the market now before mother snaps my head.