Member-only story

Powerless Children

Abuse; divorce; and the question of relative privilege

Misty Moon
Human in Pieces
6 min readJan 5, 2025

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My son, Dusty. Image created by author

When I was maybe fifteen years old, my stepfather wouldn’t let my mother leave.

The memory exists in pieces now, fragments, but each shard is still as clear as the day it happened. Here is one: my stepfather follows my mother around, hurling verbal abuse, when all she wants to do is get away from it. It is uncanny how closely this memory resembles a similar one, two decades down the road, of Atlas doing the same thing to me. I remember how it made me feel as a child — confused, afraid, wishing I could do something to make it stop but completely powerless; now, I know exactly how my mother felt in that moment, too.

Here is another fragment, smaller but even more heartbreaking: my brother Reaper, only seven or so, picking up gravels from the driveway and throwing them with all his might at his father. Some of them hit their target, bouncing off the back of a man who is bigger, stronger, more forceful than anyone else here. He doesn’t even notice.

And another: my mother tells us to get in the Durango, my two brothers, a friend of mine, and me, and gets her keys to drive away from this monster. There is a crack in this shard, because I don’t remember how exactly it happened (or maybe I didn’t see this part) but my stepfather wrests the keys away…

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Human in Pieces
Human in Pieces

Published in Human in Pieces

The modern narrative of what it means to be human does not do us justice. It is only when we find ourselves in pieces that we can truly understand ourselves and become whole.

Misty Moon
Misty Moon

Written by Misty Moon

Writer, survivor, fledgling activist. Misty is the narrator inside my head. Buy me a coffee at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/mistymoon

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