Love Hung On a String
My past was not painful enough
To label traumatic:
Stuffed with chastise,
Carelessly embroidered with temper
It was unbearable
Right up to the sharp, piercing point of impalement
The weight I bore upon my shoulders was an ounce too light
To consider heavy
My warm wounds
Were just too shallow
For stitches
While the lullabies she screamed as I fell asleep,
Are now faint echoes
They were loud enough
To weave their way into my nerves,
And eternally embed
A pattern below my skin
The revile she spewed,
Senseless yet sufficient,
Satisfied the required attention,
While neglecting the needed endurance of kindness for a child
Just as I was ready for
My last thread to be cut,
She sacrificed a whispered,
"I love you."
Her love,
Simply spoken,
Tore my heart to ambivalence;
I believed it over rode the fates
I'm simply a child,
Forced to grow up
Tearing at the seams
Worn and weary from abuse;
It is too late to be mended