Whiplash

I see you now for the first time,
Towering over me.
You didn't used to be so very tall.
Did I shrink? Did you grow?
How did this come to be?
You look more your age now, you know.
Teenager to child,
Ages really matter,
But I never thought of us as not the same.
Maybe it made it easier
To excuse what you did,
Helped me internalize all the blame.
Now I know the truth.
We were NOT the same.
There's no way around that simple fact.
Which means I was too young,
And you were too old,
For that to have been the way to act.
Images flash through me
Of what you made me do,
But those are
The wrong words
For me to use.
I struggle now to shift
My entire paradigm
"What YOU did to ME" was abuse.