Monsters

Every night,
I lie still in the dark,
letting the past engulf me,
Wishing I could somehow unremember

And I am again
That trembling child,
With a monster in her closet.
Waiting.

The monster comes,
wearing the face of broken trust.
It knows my name,
and where my darkest fears hide.
It knows the shape of my fear
and its texture,
and how to slip beneath my skin,
curl around my bones like smoke,
soft and poisonous,
stealing the breath from my lungs.

I still see him.
I still feel his cold hands on my skin,
his calloused fingers touching me,
forcing his way
into places he doesn't belong.
Haunting me.
Taunting me.
Breaking me.

Shattering my dreams like glass,
into jagged pieces of a childhood
I can't forget.

 

Scars

She's too young for this labyrinth of scars,
too young for the weight her eyes carry,
but still, there they are.
etched lines on her soul,
stories she never asked to tell.

The wind blows and she flinches,
not from the chill,
but from ghosts that linger in places
where her childhood should have been.

She smiles sometimes,
but it’s hollow,
something borrowed,
fading before it reaches her eyes.

And still she stands,
fragile, but somehow unbroken,
as if daring the world
to try again.

 

Angels

Sitting in the counselor's office,
eyes tracing the beige walls,
watching his words spill out like loose gravel,
never quite paving the way.

Time will soften, he said.
Time will heal,
Talk it out,
Tell me how you feel.
Trite platitudes that meant nothing
to a girl whose childhood was fucked—
literally, if I may—
sorry for being so blunt.

Seven years of counseling,
and where did it get me?
Standing on a railing,
looking down at the pavement
a hundred feet below.
Just one more step...

Angels are real.
I know, because I met one.
Some would say it was just a random crossing of paths,
but I know better.
The universe stepped in,
when no one else could,
put him there, in that exact spot,
on that exact night,
for a reason.

Are you okay?

It seemed like such an obvious question,
with such an obvious answer,
when a girl is standing on a railing,
looking down at the pavement
a hundred feet below.
But no one ever asked it before.
And it made me laugh.

He sat on the railing beside me,
no words, no platitudes, just listening,
holding my eyes like a silent promise,
his gentle hand reaching out like I mattered.
It was the simplest thing,
but it was everything.

In that moment,
something shifted,
like sunlight through trees,
and for the first time ever,
I felt understood.

 

Hope

Hope is the smallest breath,
a flicker that refuses to die.
Even in the darkest night,
it finds a way through.
A quiet glimmer
beneath the cold.

It waits,
shines like the edge of dawn,
a promise she holds without knowing.

A hand reaches out,
a voice breaks through the silence,
and somewhere deep inside,
she rises,
believing in a light
she can't quite see.