12/31/2025
***Why She Doesn’t Leave***
By: Lora Jay Simpson
Everyone tells her that she should leave, but where is she to go?
For every time she packs her bag, it’s violence that she knows.
People tell her to call for help, but she’s done that too a time or two,
And each time she’s seen that as a victim, the system doesn’t work for you.
Even when he’s went to jail, he’s released to return again,
Except this time he’s more angry that she’s taken a stand against him.
And what would have been hours of countless tears and cries for help
Becomes days of pleading for her life as he puts her body through hell.
She’s covered in bruises and afraid for her life, and there’s no one left to call
Because her family has been isolated from her, and her phone is smashed against the wall.
Her days are filled with countless prayers of begging God to change his heart
And her nights are filled with falling tears because her world has fallen apart.
She dreams of freedom, finding peace in her escape,
But every step she takes towards the door is a nightmare that she must face.
He’s convinced the world that he is charming with his manipulative ways
But she knows the monster that he is and that’s partly why she stays.
And even if she finds the moment that she should flee
Where will she go, when everyone’s closed their homes, afraid of his threats to disrupt their peace
She’s trapped inside a losing war, one she can not win,
For whether she chooses to stay or go, she shares a child with him.
And even if she escapes his grasp and finds herself away
She’ll spend the rest of her life wondering “Will this be the time he takes our children away?”
Will she ever see them again, will she tuck them into bed
Or will he follow through on his threats, and her get the call that they’re dead
She’s paralyzed in fear of what he may or may not do
And so she sacrifices her very self to prove her motherly love is true
For being with them in his presence might mean that she’ll be hurt
But at least she’s there to keep them safe if ever his anger diverts
She prays every day for an answer to come, but finds herself In hell
She’s done all that she knows to do, and has no one that cares to tell
Silently, in fear, she waits, and faces more of his brutal inflicted pain
Until one day, she must take that plight, if ever things will change.
And so she finds the courage to leave, she doesn’t want to stay
But as she steps closer to the door, she is broken and her breath strangled away.
In staying, she was judged, but in leaving, now she’s gone
And people will still blame her as they ask the question
“Why did she stay so long?”
For every victim of Domestic Violence knows that it’s a game that no one would ever want to play
For they are forced to endure evil by staying, but their lives ended when they walk away.
Every day, three women die because they never found the strength to leave
Or because there was no help, no justice system, and no paper gave her security
For when you’re with an abuser, one does not simply choose to go
You are property to be beaten and discarded and no one cares to know
You’re his, until he frees you, but three pass away every day
Because abusers don’t just let you go, and that’s why women stay.
