Answer:
�I got flowers today/It wasn�t my birthday or any other special day/Last night we had a fight and he hit me/But I know he is sorry/�Cause I got flowers today. I got flowers today/It wasn�t our anniversary or any other special day/Last night he threw me against the wall and started to choke me/ But I know he�s sorry/�Cause I got flowers today. I got flowers today/It wasn�t Mother�s Day or any other special day/I was so swollen and bruised I was ashamed to answer the door/But I know he�s sorry/�Cause I got flowers today. If I leave him where will I go?/What about money? What about my kids?/It�s getting worse every time but I�m afraid to leave/But I know he�s sorry/�Cause I got flowers today. I got flowers today/ My family and friends filed to see me/Asking why I never left him. If I only had the strength and courage to, but I didn�t/ So, I got flowers today.� This powerful poem vividly describes experiences of millions of women abused by their partners�men who vowed, sometimes with God as their witness, to love, hold, and cherish their wives, �till death do they part. The poem speaks about the cycle of violence that abused women go through. This cycle has three stages: tension-building, battering, and honeymoon. In the first, signs of abuse can be observed. �Minor� abuses happen and may include insults, put-downs, cursing, accusations. The tension escalates and builds up, and so does the abuse. This will erupt into violence, the second phase. This is the stage when the woman is most at risk. Then things will cool down. The man will be most apologetic and loving. He begs for forgiveness and promises that the abuse will never happen again. This is where the flowers come in�the honeymoon phase. And the cycle begins again. Unfortunately, as time passes, the tension-building phase gets shorter and the battering more frequent and brutal. The honeymoon phase also becomes rare. Without help, the woman is left to suffer by herself. Getting out of an abusive relationship is never easy for many reasons. Many women, because they do not know any better, tend to blame themselves for the abuse. It is not uncommon to hear women say �it is my fault.� Women also usually de-prioritize themselves. Their kids and families come first. They will sacrifice for as long as they can. For poor women, the economic factor is important
