The Secret...

I stood.

"Your honor is it too late for me to testify

judging by the look in your eye

you are wondering who I am.

I bore the plaintiff a daughter

But I am the defendant's wife

before yo assume this is a trifling love triangle

come full circle

let me set things square.

You can not judge me

unless you were there.

I'm just appearing to make things clear

Appealing to your sense of reason

to detect the treason behind the nomenclature

of the plantiff called victim.

Grown-ass man

I was wit him before I was nary a woman

Barely bleedin

He could smell the lack of self esteem between my thighs

Provided me what I thought I was needin

Feedin me love you forever lies

Kept me a controlled concubine

But I wasn't diggin it no more

Tired of being a whore of circumstance

With my pants around my dignity.

When I tried to pick em up

He beat me down

Restrained me

Raped me

Let his friends do the same to me

Repeatedly.

Then he rejected me

As soon as he could see

The bulge in my belly.

The shame in me

Was sentenced to silence in my conscious state.

But late at night I would wake up screamin

From fighting off demons

Gagging from the stench of their semen even in my dreams

and yet I still loved my baby

My daughter, now a little girl.

It was me and her against the world, until I met the defendant.

He was patient

Kind

Loved me for my mind

my heart

never starting any touch

without my permission

he listened

he was giving

restored my trust in men

Loved my child as if she were his own

Provided us with a new beginning,

and with this ring

we are wed.

In our honeymoon bed, I woke up drenched in sweat

Shivering with fear.

He held me near and begged me to explain.

That is how we all came here today.

You may see him as a cold hearted killer.

I see him as a man who freed me

From living my nightmares daily.

If you would, Your Honor show him some leniency.

I sat.

The gavel wrapped.

Guilty verdict flapped from judgemental lips with somethin

Bout two wrongs not making a right.

Into the night I screamed.

Woke drenched in sweat

Shivering with fear

In our honeymoon bed

You held me near and begged me to explain.

This time...

...I refrained.