A survivor’s lesson: A fractured memoir in prose
©ESR 2026

⚠️**Content Advisory** for hints at family trauma and neglect by parents. Hint at childhood abuse

There was once a little girl who didn’t know she wore a crown.

In one house—her home—the walls yelled. The air rattled with slammed doors and silences that bruised louder than fists. Hands wore jagged smiles, and love came laced with insults and exhaustion. Lemonade never tasted quite sweet enough there. The floors creaked like they were warning her to stay quiet. Books were frowned upon. Feelings were forbidden.

But there was another house.

It smelled faintly of old books, stale beer, and lemon-scented cleaner. It had a room with collectible dolls watching from high shelves—frozen witnesses with painted eyes. It had a TV that played what she wanted. Books she could read. Laughter that didn’t rise like a threat. It was calm. Softer.

At first.

The man in that house had brown eyes. Gentle ones. Or so she thought. He was kind. Or so she thought. He gave her space to be. Or so she thought.

But brown faded. Shadows grew longer. And soon the eyes turned green.

She didn’t know what to name it yet…this wrongness. This ache that came after certain hugs. After moments that lasted too long. She didn’t know what was right, or wrong, or why she felt like she had to climb into her own skin and lock the door from the inside.

But she knew it wasn’t okay.

And yet, it was still better than the home she came from. Better to lose pieces of herself quietly than be shattered loudly. Until the cost became too high.

One day, the green-eyed one found the mirror. Not the real one—but the invisible one inside her, the one that reflected who she was before. And he broke it. Broke her. And when he said he loved her more than her, meaning his wife, the little girl understood.

She was not safe. Not here. Not anywhere.

So she told her mother.

And her mother laughed. Or worse…dismissed. Said it was lies. Said she watched too much TV. Said she didn’t know what she was talking about. That the man had brown eyes, not green.

That was when the crown fell.

That was when the little girl realized no one was coming.

That was when she learned that even truth has a price.

So she made a plan.

It wasn’t big. It wasn’t dramatic. It was a splinter of mirror…kept hidden, kept sharp. And when the green-eyed one got too close, she cut. Not to kill. Not even to scream. But to mark the end.

He bled.

She watched.

And that was enough.

Later, her mother asked about it.

“Did you hear what happened to him at work?”

The car smelled like stale air and questions.

The little girl looked out the window and said, flatly,

“No. And if I did, you’d just say I was lying, too.”

And it was never brought up again.

No apologies. No rescue.

But no more touches, either.

She kept the shard of mirror in her pocket for a long time after. Sometimes she still does.

Not to cut…just to remember.

Not her pain. Not even his face.

But hers. Who she was before. Who she became.

The crown never came back the same way.

But someday, she’ll make one of her own design.

Wrought from fire and memory and every piece she’s had to gather since.

Because now she knows:

Monsters wear all kinds of eyes.

Sanctuary sometimes comes with fine print.

And little girls grow up into women who survive—

even when no one believes them.

Epilogue: The Lesson with Teeth

While she survived that house, the rot didn’t end at its walls.

It followed her.

The green-eyed monster was clever. He changed faces, changed names, changed tones. Sometimes he wore kindness. Sometimes he wore a suit. Sometimes he looked like someone who said, “I love you,” just before pulling the rug out from under her feet. He was never really gone. Just waiting. Just quieter. Just somewhere else.

And so, the girl, older now —learned the art of vigilance.

She learned to test every door before entering.

To brace for glass shattering behind every sweet promise.

To keep her heart behind ribcage and sarcasm, sarcasm behind her smile.

Because giving her heart away meant risking that the monster might take it. Again.

Because vulnerability was just another invitation to be undone.

Because survival meant shielding first, always.

But survival has a weight.

A hunger.

A cost.

And she would carry it like armor until the weight nearly buried her.

Until she could no longer tell the difference between caution and loneliness.

She would have to learn…slowly, brutally, and in her own time…that survival is not the same as living.

And that love, real love, might someday come to her not to devour, but to kneel.

But first, there would be more slammed doors.

More shattering glass.

More monsters with green eyes in borrowed skin.

And still…she would rise.

One breath.

One splinter.

One reclaimed piece of her crown at a time.

Poem:

The House with Green-Eyed Walls

(a survivor’s lesson in six parts)

I. The Pretty Little House

There was lemonade and old books,

a television that didn’t bark orders,

a calm the girl mistook for safety.

No yelling here. No glass-sharp words.

She thought peace wore wallpaper roses

and the hush of collectibles lining shelves.

Brown eyes greeted her first,

kind enough. Gentle.

They didn’t snap like her mother’s did.

Not then.

Not until later.

Not until green crept into them like mold

growing behind the drywall.

II. The Turning

She watched his eyes change.

From brown to green.

From man to shadow.

What began as hugs

turned to fingers that lingered.

Words like “special” and “only”

twisted around her wrists

like satin ties in a box marked Trust me.

She didn’t know which house was worse…

the chaos of her mother’s rage,

or this…

this rotting sanctuary

where her crown was stolen

and her mirror cracked.

III. The Betrayal

She told her mother.

Whispered the truth like it tasted like blood.

But her mother

—the one who named her—

—the one who should have saved her—

called her a liar.

Said she watched too much TV.

That brown eyes couldn’t be green.

That she was confused.

Then knocked her down,

like the crown from her head.

Again.

And again.

Always.

So the girl stopped asking for rescue.

Silence became the price of surviving.

IV. The Rebellion

One day, in the green-eyed house,

when his hands reached again,

she didn’t freeze.

She didn’t cry.

She cut him.

With the mirror he broke.

With the piece that still knew her face.

Later,

someone asked if she’d heard

what happened to the man at work.

She looked out the window,

at her mother beside her,

and said:

“No.

And if I did,

you’d just say I was lying again.”

It was never discussed.

V. The Aftermath

She learned.

Don’t trust.

Don’t speak.

Don’t need.

Survive.

Green eyes would come back…

different faces.

Same rot.

She built herself into a fortress

with no doors

and called it home.

She learned to be glass

so no one would try to look inside.

To smile while she bled.

To love from a distance

because closeness was too costly.

VI. The First Domino

This was only the beginning.

A crown lost to silence.

A mirror turned to weapon.

A mother turned away.

A monster left to breathe.

It was the first domino…

a tilt that would one day fall again,

harder, louder, deeper,

in her twenties,

when another shadow nearly ended her.

But it didn’t.

She lived.

Now,

in a wiser body,

she writes the poems

the little girl never could,

and every line

is a piece of the mirror

turned toward the light.