Memory

She turns the key, unlocks the door
Trying not to creak the floor
If she is found to be home late
Blood and bruise will be her fate

Attempts to leave without a map-
No plan or goal makes her turns back
The house is filled with battered fear
A life of pain in sixteen years

Her father died when she was three
Consumed, he ran into a tree
He slept two weeks without a wake
Her mother took on his full plate

She took a job to pay the debts
It paid in cash and tipped regrets
A greater damage caused by men
She sniffed a line given by them

It numbed her face, her soul, her core
She needed less by wanting more
Her daughter fell into the first
She gave her up and blamed her curse

The girl was placed into their care
A family claimed they would be there,
They’d watch her grow and mend her heart
Their lying words began from start

This girl did grow, but not inside
She learned to run, to bleed and hide
She could not speak, she only cried
(Her father drank, yet they both died)

Her scars were carved onto her arms
And twelve years passed by bringing harm
She prayed at night that she would pass
Her heart was made from broken glass

The same glass stabbed into her limbs
Emotions felt as life grew dim
And as she crept into her bed
A voice she heard behind her head

Tonight would vary from the others
As she cried and pulled her covers
Up to her face, he only grinned
He uttered out, “The fun begins…”

He tried to touch her fragile skin
She winched and grew away from him
Her strength was not a match for his
He pulled his mouth into a kiss

She fought tonight more than had before
She kicked him down onto the floor
A hand had struck her weary face
As blood now marred her pillowcase

The names he gave without deserve
He beat her down with more than words
A life now flashed before her eyes
Yet, it was not her own demise

She now knew what she must do
A piece of glass she chose to use
Into his neck she carved her pain
And as it flowed he spoke her name

Apologies were not the time
She watched the life drain from his mind
And as the blood began to form
She arose and locked the door

A bag of things she quickly packed
The sun now shone out from the black
She walked into the woman’s room
She’d freed her also from her tomb

The lady screamed when she saw red
She told her that the man was dead
“He did not get what he came for,
Instead his blood he chose to pour.”

She took the stairs, departing then
The air was fresh, was warm and thin
The rising sun felt through her coat
She wiped her eyes and cleared her throat

“My name is what I have been made,
They take my thoughts from night to day.
My life erased when I was three,
Unto no one, I am, Memory.”