For anyone who has ever been bullied into silence…

The other day

Someone close to me asked me

To recall the heartache

of a past-pain that hasn’t

completely healed yet,

And it caused me physical pain

As it all came back to me,

That you really thought it was okay

To tear me down

And use me

Against myself

For your satisfaction,

To suppress your own inner pain,

You thought you were really tough, didn’t you,

Can’t believe I once thought I loved you,

Every time you beat me down

By telling me

That I was to blame

For all the bad things

that went on,

That I got in the way,

That I took up too much space,

You normalised emotional trauma

with careless rage,

You broke a guitar

that was given to you

Bet they don’t even know

that you smashed it

In a frustrated state,

Broken lamps,

And remote controls,

In the bedroom,

In the garage,

In the car,

On the street,

and so many more places,

All the many beats

Of my heart

That you broke,

That nobody ever saw,

So entrenched in the masquerade,

That when I tried to raise my voice,

Many months before I left,

They all –

You all – laughed,

As if the truth that

I finally coughed up

was just a childish joke,

To be squandered

and neglected,

Well, that wasn’t

a very hopeful landscape

for revealing the hidden trauma,

So don’t ask the absent air why

I didn’t speak up,

Were you really so confounded by how long it took me to leave?

And society counts me

as one of the lucky ones,

To break free

Partially unscathed,

And it’s true,

Here I am,

And it’s only occasionally that

The excruciating flashbacks creep up on me,

But I’m safe;

I’m worlds away from you.

And it’s only,

Only because of the humanity of a select few,

Who pulled me out of the deepest darkest blue,

And took me in off the street

At 3 o’clock in the morning,

and offerred me a bed

After you pushed me out your door,

With nowhere to run to

On the other side of the world,

With no ticket out

And no plans for the road

but expected me to have it all figured out

and be out of your town

as fast as I was off your lawn.