Birds

My little sister was mad at me today

Because I didn't let her sleep

With me last night...

What she doesn't know is

I was falling apart

Behind my door.

I've been falling apart

Behind all that makeup

I wear to fake the strong inside me.

I've been falling apart ever since she was born.

But I can't have her see me like this,

Little sisters don't deserve

The tragedy of seeing

Their role model fall apart,

At least not yet.

How do I explain to her

Why I'm always in a bad mood lately?

How do I look at her and tell her

That wounds don't always heal

When it’s my job to make her feel stronger.

How do I explain that

We are two birds

Rising from the ashes

of the same tragedy?

Rape has a way of coming back and

How do I explain that

All of the women I know

Have been raped at least once?

How do I explain

I wasn't always a fish,

I was sometimes a cobra,

Sometimes a sheep

But it was never me they took.

It wasn't her

He took,

He took her innocence,

But not her burning rage,

And as long as we have

Wild hearts and wild hair,

As long as we have

Mouths louder than thunder,

We are ourselves.

No matter what they take,

Even if they skin us alive,

Even if they scrape our insides

And feed them to us in the morning,

They will not devour

The sound of our living,

Unless we allow them to.

She will break sometimes,

Like I do,

And the world will be cold,

her bed will be an ocean

Of memories

And her own arms will drown her

In too much of herself.

She will never forgive herself

For being too much of a woman,

And she will hate them for being

Anything but human

She will break down to pieces,

But she will have to build

A home out of her brokenness.

The world will end for her

Many nights in a row,

And begin again every morning.

She will then understand

That sometimes the rain

Is louder than the thunder,

And sometimes your wings bend

But it doesn't mean you are broken.

And lonely people like us

Have been sent to fight the battles

God created for us.