Pacesetter News

I was cast into this role before my mother even bore me, shaped by hands I had never seen, molded into something small, something obedient. My fate was something imposed on me—passed down like a curse from mother to daughter. Before I ever knew the weight of love, I was taught already inside a womb, that love is meant to serve.

That’s how they made me. That’s what they want all women to be. Tired. Submissive. Quiet.

Then, I married a man.

The man who only remembers this house exists when he wants a machine to bore another child into my body 24/7.

He forced the silence down to my throat—forced it past my lips, pressed it deep into my lungs until breathing felt like submission. To exist but for his expense. He swallowed me whole—the girl my mother fought tooth and nail to raise.

But he could not digest me, he failed to consume me.

Because I have teeth now.

I endured his dominance that left bruises in my skin and I consumed his sharp words that ran through my daughter’s mind.

But who fetches the water and carries his heavy pails from the well for his bath? Who massages his shoulders even though calloused skin on my hands is cracking? Who places food before him, though he has hands and strength, though he could lift a single finger but never will? Who raises the children while he vanishes and calls it “working”?

I do them all, and yet, when I stumble—when I make a mistake, when I dare to show weakness, and be more than just his servant, his wife—that is when he finds his hands. Hands that never help and lift, but know exactly how to punish.

“You make me do too much labour.”

And all the women in me are tired.

The mother. The therapist. The maid. The Nymph. The nurse. His servant.

All the women in me that he tried to cage, to silence, to chain—wanted to scream, want to claw, want to get away.

I got to run, I got to try, to undo the mistake I made when he tries to make me his.

So let him sit at his high table. Let him raise his hand one more time, let him dare.

Because the next time he does—

I will not flinch.

I will not cower.

I will sink my teeth in.

📝: Mistress
✍️: Clark Maglaque/PACESETTER
🎨: Andrei Salalac/PACESETTER
For more stories, visit Pacesetter’s official website: medium.com/pacesetter

Para iba pang istorya, bisitahin ang website ng Pacesetter: medium.com/pacesetter
#Pacesetter
#OurSolidarityWillSetUsFree