I affirmed I would tell the truth. I raised my right hand,
my left clutching my black wool coat and I swore. It’s times like these, in a courtroom shivering from nerves,
that I realized that doing what was right and telling the truth is, sometimes,
one of the hardest things in life to do.
Truth. No lies. What you heard, saw, and experienced.
Undiluted, naked. Uncluttered by fancy words or metaphors. No flowery speech.
No well thought-out monologue.
In the days before, I mentally went over my testimony. Not
just what I was being questioned on, I expounded and spoke long monologues to
the judge in my head about what had put me in this position. Long childhood
years of fights and abuse, of lies a child should not be coerced to tell a
parent, of neglects behind closed doors.
