What They Took From Her

If you were her, you’d mourn the girl she was,
the one who walked beneath the open sky,
who heard a footstep and assumed it passed,
who never taught her windows how to lie.

They took the simple language of the street,
the careless laughter spilling into rain;
they taught her every shadow had a heartbeat,
and every kindness might conceal a chain.

She lost the door she once forgot to lock,
the midnight walks, the softness of a room;
she lost the fearless rhythm of the clock,
the trust that once let flowers freely bloom.

And worst of all, beneath the haunted light,
she lost the self who never feared the night.