I put
my heart into the wrong container,
expecting
it to be healing and warm.
Instead,
what I found was a complainer
whose
affection hit me like chloroform.
In
those years, every time I would wake
and
work to fix the situation at hand,
instead
I would find a man like a snake,
all
too ready to lie and misunderstand.
My
inner strength was sapped away,
stolen
in pieces, he’d ruin it, bit by bit.
A
kick or punch is so much clearer by day
than
the words upon which he would sit.
How I
was so blind, I ask myself daily,
wondering
how I could be so broken.
If
only he’d hit me, punching as gayly
as
his words and dismissal were spoken.
Now,
I find myself in a vice-grip by fear,
its
cold, dead fingers attached like a leech.
My
first instinct is to run away, steer clear
of
any affection—anxiety makes me screech.
Please,
I implore, help me pick up the pieces
of
what is left in the aftermath of this fall.
Alone,
impossible, but with help, it ceases
to be
something for which I feel I cannot call.
