Where Is She

Trigger Warning: Abuse

Here in this place of loss

In my mind

A cold cave

Dark and quiet

I remember me

-

I was once human

Spinning about the poplar trees

Before age dealt its hand

Life banging on the door

Demanding I succumb

-

But life happened

It threw me against walls

It took my innocence

It reached down my pants

It made me a slave

Hung by depravity

-

It hollowed me out

Sharpened the ends

Falling down forever

Off the cliff

A dream that never ends

-

A child’s innocence

Lost by men’s loneliness

Anger and insecurity

A rightful act

Their property

-

Take the sweet girl

Take what’s left of her

As if they all knew

I wasn’t the type to scream

-

Forty years now

I’m still afraid

Of their rough hands

The way they stare

The muscle and the hair

-

How do I find

Me again

Before they slithered into

The cracks of my youth

The fly of my jeans

-

How do I become

Free of the shame

The jaded thing

That still twists inside of me

Calling out

To be me

-

The woman I was supposed to know

The girl that was supposed to grow

The mother that should’ve known

But I was left all alone

-

How do I find me

After forty years of running

Away from the girl

From you and him

From all of them