The life you stole from me
You cannot return the years you stole,
Or all the sleep you took from me, night after night, whole.
You kept me awake until my thoughts could barely form,
Then called me stupid for the fog your cruelty had worn.
You left me severely sleep deprived, unable to rest,
My body exhausted, my mind under constant duress.
I stumbled through each day with no strength left to think,
While you watched me unravel, standing at the brink.
You raised a stick when I needed a hand,
You struck me instead of helping me stand.
You spoke words like knives that cut to the bone,
Then smiled the next moment, as though nothing was wrong.
Tell yourself you tried, tell yourself you were good,
Rewrite every memory however you would.
Go to Bible study, kneel down and pray,
With a knife in your hand and your sins tucked away.
But no prayer can return what you took from me,
No scripture can erase what you chose not to see.
I cannot forgive you for the life I never knew,
For the person I might have been had I not grown up with you.
You broke me down in a thousand different ways,
Then left me to wander through the wreckage of my days.
And now the world points fingers, says it's mine to repair,
A life you left in pieces, a burden I shouldn't bear.
They tell me to move forward, to learn how to forgive,
As though they understand what it takes for me to live.
They judge the scars without knowing who held the blade,
And blame me for the person your cruelty has made.
Mother, will your Jesus forgive the pain you passed to me?
The wounds you carried from your past, then handed down so freely?
I know your parents hurt you, I know you suffered too,
But I was just a child. Why must I suffer because of you?
Father, will your God forgive the sexual abuse you chose?
The things you did in silence, the secrets no one knows?
And how you stood there watching while she tore my world apart,
When you were meant to shelter me, not shatter my young heart?
Tell me, was I born to bear the weight of all your pain?
To inherit every wound you had and live through it again?
Was I brought into this world to pay for all your sins?
To fight a war I never chose, a war I couldn't win?
And now I face the mirror, with tears I cannot hide,
Searching for the person still surviving deep inside.
Tell me, dear reflection, is there more that I can be?
Or will the ghosts of yesterday forever follow me?
Must I let their cruelty decide how I will live?
Must I spend my whole life mourning what they couldn't give?
Can I become somebody beyond the pain I've known?
Can I build a life that's mine, a life to call my own?
Please tell me there is beauty I have yet to see,
A world beyond the sorrow, a place where I am free.
Please tell me there's a future that their hands cannot destroy,
That I can still discover peace, and laughter, love, and joy.
For though you stole my childhood, and years I can't retrieve,
There is still a part of me that desperately wants to believe.
That I am more than all the damage, more than what you made of me,
And the life you tried to bury is still waiting to be free.
You may have written my beginning,
But you do not get to write my ending.