Monster

Broken

After leaving you

I fear that

I will no longer be myself.

That I'll be too broken to recognize the face in the mirror.

She'll be a stranger to me.

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Jailbreak

How come

when I leave you --

finally leave you --

I feel like a prisoner

being freed from her chains

changing into new clothes

and rejoining society,

yet you speak of a safe place?

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Warrior Child

Child,

she tried to break you.

She may have driven you from your home,

but you will find a new one.

She may have won the battle,

but she cannot win the war,

because although she broke your heart,

she can never break your spirit.

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Immaturity

After all this time;

After me coming to you

and groveling at your feet,

humbling myself

when I am the one who was wronged,

you are still trying to take me down.

Well,

you came to the wrong place.

I will rise

no matter how you try to pull me down.

You cannot plant

seeds of doubt

in the minds of those who already know

that I am not what you say.

I will thrive and grow

and you cannot stop me.

You tried to burn me as a seed,

but I am an aspen.

Burning me does nothing

but cause me to take root and begin to sprout.

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Dreams

You speak of dreams

as if they're always achievable;

as if nothing can ever stand in the way.

You ask me

what

who

holds me back

from my dreams.

And I want to say

you.

You are who and what holds me back,

keeps me down,

refuses to just let me live my dreams

when I deserve just this one...

but I keep quiet.

If I speak up

you will tear my throat out again.

Rip my voice out again.

Silence my screams

all over again.

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The Devil I Know

You sauntered on in

and here I was

thinking you were an angel from above.

My prayers had been answered!

You would unlock doors,

take me places,

bring about a new era.

At least, that is what I thought.

But this is how you prepared the noose,

wrapping the blindfold

around my eyes and leading me

to the gallows.

"It's safe," you said.

And when your wings began to smolder and flake;

when they turned bony and black;

when your halo cracked;

no one believed me.

There were times when I pretended to be blind

to your whip like tail

and the way that broken halo

began to curve into horns.

Yet still, it got worse.

You forced me to be something

that I was not.

I doubted myself.

I lost faith in myself,

and I put my faith in you.

You only wanted control.

They say that power corrupts,

and that's what I saw in you.

I saw the monster that power had made.

You continued,

like a man with a whip.

Again and again and again

you struck me.

And I kept it all inside

because I thought that it was truly my fault.

My fault that you hated me,

my fault that I failed at everything,

my fault that those things happened,

my fault that I just couldn't get it right.

But now, I know better.

It's not my fault. It was never my fault.

She told me that I deserved to be

honored and raised up.

He told me that I don't deserve

the abuse that you give me.

They told me that they all know

I belong.

I am not the snake in the garden.

You are a monster.

You destroyed the foundation,

knocking down what once was strong,

like a great city collapsing.

You destroyed my world.

You cleansed my cities of those you found unworthy.

I am still trying to cover the scars that you left on me.

I am still trying to pull myself back together

because after you

I am so, so broken.

The one thing I will never understand:

why?