The Clothes on Her Back

 

Loving you...

   Took everything from me. 

Where once I had a car, now I am left somehow 

  without 

 To fend. 

All because I loved you. 

  I had no debt, and I had actually worked my credit well.  

  Now, I am footed with a bill, I can not pay, creditors calling everyday, and I have no answer 

  and no coin to give. 

How could loving you, do this, but it did! 

Loving you, ruined me deeply, in its duration of stay. Now I work to heal the wounds you left in me 

 

Every 

Single 

Day. 

Loving you, was the worst decision I ever made. 

A decision I line myself to forgive. 

  Desolate now of worldly things...

In myself I find a new grit. 

  But I had worked my whole life 

      To soften it. 

This, no different, 

  Than an abused wife, running away, 

      Hardly a place to stay-

But the clothes on her back. 

  And if it's not even that...

The heartbreak was just more to bare, stealing peace up, and replaying it with years of despair. 

  Forced to cover face. 

Now I sit in this place, this place you've left me. 

Worse than I had ever done to myself; 

  Everything I worked hard to gain

           Gone from me. 

            Zero Security. 

             Ground Zero. 

      No Penny to my name. 

A place of nothing. With nothing. But Rubble in my wake. 

  You stole from me what you stole from her, your mother.  Stole it all. 

  Then masked yourself in a victim's face. 

So...

   We cry alone. 

      Her and I

From the years taken, the hollowing out of soul, 

  The giving endlessly only to be met 

      By abuse and control. 

And I'm not sure any words can put any depth to it. The depravity you left us with. 

   The depravity I find myself having to build up again and forgive with Less security than I have ever had. 

  You took it. 

 And grinned. 

  Glad to beseech the woman that layed at your feet to love you. That sacrificed herself to naively save you. 

  And sacrifice we did. 

   

  And after all that, you beg me still upon your knees, asking me to lay back down at your feet. 

  After you took

Quite literally, 

  Everything from me. 

It is the essence of tragedy. 

  But I will not break for you.

I will go on. God in hand. Walking my feet. 

  Guiding me. 

  So that I can build back up what you stole. 

    

I will pay the toll. 

  And I will keep on going. 

Because I have sworn it to myself and God

  That his will not be the end of me. 

      I have sworn. 

But it does not mean that I can comprehend 

  The things you stole. 

The depravity now worn. 

No. I can not believe the place you left me in. 

  But belief is the reality torn. 

For it is just that. 

  I have made myself one of those women. 

    By loving you. 

Running away, and with nothing 

  But the clothes on my back. 

    And the fire in me reborn. 

Desolate but free. 

   Penniless, but me. 

It is the price I paid in loving you. 

  A negotiate retracted. 

    A betrayal meant. 

Lies that spent me and kept 

  Everything I needed to move beyond this. 

But I will do it anyway. 

  God, together with me; we will find a way. 

And it will be despite 

  Everything you took away. 

This is the power of a woman, 

  Who will pay everything 

  For her price in freedom. 

And everything...everything...

          I paid. 

          I paid. 

     

In A Lonely World

 

My peace was stolen from me. 

  Stolen from me in friendships that lacked reciprocity; where judgements and envy hid 

  Behind fragmented views 

     and seething smiles. 

Stolen from me in childhood, by men who molested a 3 year old girl, and many more along the years, that violated my body temple. 

  My peace was stolen. 

Stolen from me in parents who abandoned of literal fashion and of neglect and use...

   All while never seeing

 My world inside crack apart. 

  It was stolen from me, by lovers, 

Whom I had attempted to find light in

  Amidst the dark; their wounds rupturing my own, their violence staining my heart. 

  In every place I ran, the world stayed lonely. 

In every place I returned, a matrix unholy. 

  I would creep back into my bed, and curl up from the dread. The ache. The soul biting agony shoved deep down in my chest, just so I could get through another day. 

  But nothing stopped me...

From trying to be loved.  From forcing a stage so I could be seen...even when audiences turned their heads from me. 

  It was stolen from me in headaches, that raged before I hit puberty. Trauma electrocuting my system, depression taking over me. 

  I stole peace from myself, curbing every despair in whatever drug would care, to cure me of the temporary insanity...but they never did, did they? 

I would learn to be grateful, for the little things that stayed. Shoes on my feet. Food in my flesh. A bed I could return to. 

These things became my only peace. 

And when water ran cold, I became grit. 

When the gas went out, we burned wood. 

When my animals died, and all others left...

  That's when I turned back 

           to my bed. 

They ruptured my peace. Even when I ran, 

  The demons in them followed me, 

And with shackle and chain, 

  Split my soul into pieces 

    If it meant they could enslave apart of me. 

It is in my days, he still harasses. 

  And the lover's that could not abide. 

It is in their hurting eyes, the life forms I 

  Still manage to prop up, 

       Even above mine. 

I do not know, most days at all, 

  How I find any will to stay alive. 

My failures stacked. No assets in hand. 

 Just a trail of choices made by a little girl 

    Who grew to be no more woman. 

If I came into this world, with no thing at all, 

  Perhaps that is how I must leave. 

I can not say, I understand this life, nor its misery. 

  Love is foul. A fool to be played. A game I never understood. A power show. A force they delight, 

   and it has ever taken it's toll. 

I found my peace, temporary and such, 

  In all the smaller things.  Scrolling for hours, 

      Comedy and cats, 

    I found it in listening to the trees. 

I take it in walks, short getaways, and more rest than perhaps I need. 

I found my peace in the means of art, and things I could never be. 

And when I try, Reiki and love, healing and sitting in my shadows... 

   I see there is possibility of release. 

Yet still the dark of love is jest, and I'm not sure peace 

  Is meant for me.