I woke up this morning with so much hate I couldn’t breathe

I woke up this morning with so much hate in my chest I felt like I couldn’t breathe. It’s not random—it’s because of the men in my life. Mainly my uncle and my father. And I just need to say this somewhere.

My uncle on my mom’s side lived with us in Ethiopia after being deported from the U.S. He was a womanizer, selfish, and just cruel. He hated me for being gay—which I didn’t even know I was at the time. I remember once I begged him to play outside with me and my boomerang. He said yes. When the time came, he didn’t want to, so he hid the boomerang behind a shoe case just to avoid playing with me. I eventually found it, and I remember him and his girlfriend laughing at me like it was a joke. But I knew what he did. And it hurt. A lot.

He physically abused me. He used to hit me, call me dumb, and tell my mom I was an “abomination.” He mocked the way I acted. I was a little feminine as a kid—soft, imaginative, expressive. And he chipped away at that slowly. Made me hate parts of myself. I used to have this wild imagination. I created a whole fantasy world in our garden where me and my siblings had powers and went on adventures. I narrated the story, gave everyone magic, and made them feel part of something beautiful. Bit by bit, that light just got stomped out.

You’d think I’d hate my dad more. He physically abused me, my siblings, my mom, and even his own mother. He hurt me and the people I love worse, and for longer. But somehow, the hate for my uncle burns way worse. I truly despise him. Maybe because he saw my innocence—my light—and chose to break it. He targeted the joy in me.

I hate brutes. I hate anyone who even slightly resembles them.

And I hate that the world lets men like them exist. Men who wake up every day thinking only about how to satisfy themselves. Never doing anything meaningful. Just taking. Hurting. Consuming. Never reflecting. Never changing.

I’m not perfect, but I try. And I hate that trying feels like screaming into a void while men like that skate through life destroying things.

I haven’t cried in a long time, but I did today. It’s been about six years since I escaped that reality, but I was just thinking about who I would’ve been if it weren’t for these people. I think I would have been someone great.

I just needed to put this somewhere. If you read this, thank you. Truly.