Angels Weep...

I lay upon my bed...

I rest in a nest of pillows;

counting cracks upon the ceiling,

blue stain pine on walls that have become my everything.

I reflect on happenstance...

I muse upon mishap and circumstance;

hour upon hour, day after day, year stacked on year.

Past is past, yet it grinds in ear and heart,

Present unfolding as clock ticks down,

future waiting to reveal itself for good or for bad.

I take stock... I search for purpose, scrabble for meaning,

claw for purchase and that foundation of stone built

by every woman come before me.

What IS my purpose?

What am I giving back?

What use am I?

Kindness and compassion...yet without family so dear.

Constant rejection...oh just ignore, move past...

It's not personal...

It has nothing to do with you...

Is that right?

What blather and bullsh*t is this?

Of COURSE it's personal - it was directed at me, for me, to me.

Of COURSE it had everything to do with me - everything.

The stunned silence of survivors...victims...lost ones...

Those who sit and listen as those who should know better or know nothing of trauma,

tell THEM how they should feel.

Tell THEM how they should proceed, move on, heal.

The shock to the system as thoughts, words, actions, all come flooding back in...

The responsibility is yours...leave justice to the lazy blue, to the apathetic and broken crown.

The accountability is yours...leave the follow-up, the stalking, the character assassinations to those whose plate is full of criminals, full of victims all crying for help.

Find your worth in self-validation...oh the crap in this idiom could fill an ocean...

Self-validation? Find it where?

Within the soul shredded and tossed to the four winds?

Within the heart broken and trampled upon the ground?

Oh wait...perhaps within the mind folded over and over upon itself until knots have formed to block any positive mind-set.

The former self is gone...sucked dry by inhuman means, by evil living inside the monster left behind. Friends, family, familiar spaces and places....replaced by suspicion, supplanted by doubt and anxiety, garnered and bartered by rage and threat of death.

But yes...oh yes...move on...let it go...why can't you just get on with your life?

What life?

Oh, the life that was financially, sexually, physically, mentally and emotionally torn from you? Leaving a wasteland waiting to be re-planted, re-grown...like a patient learning how to walk again, body and mind must be taught anew.

There is NO easy answer for those who have survived abuse. None.

Please dear friends...speak not unless you know...unless you understand and see the pain behind the smile, the utter distress behind the laughter and camaraderie.

As soon as you are out of sight, it is replaced with defeat, with utter exhaustion.

These words, dear treasures are from and for those spoken to, listened to...

For each one who is finding a way out, awakening to day-to-day cruelty in place of love...

For those who have escaped and see nothing familiar, have no rock to cling to but hang on regardless in hopes of better, of more...of peace.

Healing DOES come...peace does follow...happiness shows its face more often and stays for longer periods of time.

You ARE worthy of more. Worthy of all the love you give out returned to you...

May your steps be guarded with truth, may your path be sustained with love.