Declaration of Independence

Tell me.
Give me my reaction
Tell me.
Am I to feel ashamed?
Am I to stay broken?
Am I to cower in the corner of my bedroom and feel your presence hover over me?
Tell me.
Because I do not know if I am to feel these things.
I want to feel screaming, wild joy.
Not the touch of your hands.
I want to feel exaltation at the dawn of each day.
Not a chain around my wrist.
I want to see the world wake into shimmering light, with a sunrise of peach and cream and carmine.
Not disbelief in the faces.
Not you walking past my house as though you live down the street.
Not, not, and not.

But I do.
Chains and yokes and stocks.
A noose. A strangling hand. The thrust of a knife.

Tell me.
Is this forever?
Am I always-broken? Never-mended?

I will find a voice in the darkness you’ve given me.
I will adjust my eyes to this inky night.
I will find fireflies and stars and moonbeams to light my thorn-path

You have beaten me with my memories
But I’ve still the chance to win
You’ve beaten me and beaten me and made me bloody to the core
But I will burn you out like a fever
I will take a step each day
I will cut you down.

It will never be gone, this shadow, this black hole inside.
But through or over or around, you have not won until you’ve won
I cannot lose until I lose.

I will wake to the world in shimmering light and my heart will be a shadow.
Always broken.
Still surviving.
Tell me what you think I am
And I will cut you down.

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