Breaking A Cycle

Following a research paper on Bandura's Bobo Doll Experiment 

I was not born with gentle hands..

I forged them.

From fists I’d seen too many times,

from voices that cracked like belts in the air,

I learned early that pain could echo,

but I did not let it settle in my bones.

The Bobo doll fell when struck..

again, again..

watched by wide eyes,

small hands mimicking what they knew.

But I, too, watched,

and somewhere inside,

a voice whispered:

"You don’t have to repeat this." 

I could have followed

the path carved by rage,

where love meant fear,

and control stood in for care.

But I chose friction...

to slow the wheel,

to walk against the grain

even when it tore at my skin.

They say behavior is learned.

But so is silence.

So is stillness in the storm.

So is the strength

to walk past a mirror

and not flinch at the reflection

of who you were told you'd become.

I am not my father.

Not the bruised echo of his shadow.

I am the pause between blow and breath,

the held tongue, the softened voice.

I am what it looks like

when someone rewrites the ending.

You might call it resilience...

but I call it rebellion

in the gentlest form:

to feel anger swell like thunder

and still choose not to strike.

Bandura taught that we learn

what we see.

Then let this be seen:

a child of harm

growing up not to hurt

but to heal.