Robbed: An Untold Story

The small town life isn’t
all it’s cracked up to be,
when you are born
into a family,
like her’s.

The trials and tribulations
of simply surviving
linger on the mind
like scars. Reminding
her every day, that
she’s different.
Experienced in life.

Parts of her memory
remain fragmented, torn
out of current existence
to stop the pain that haunts
these moments from
resurfacing.

There will always be
a handprint stained on
her.
His handprint.
Family is seen as an
unconditional
kind of love. What
about those that try to
make this love… trivial.

What about the family
she held dear, that betrayed
that trust, that boundary?
Do they get to receive the
same unconditional
regard as her mother
does her brother?

His handprint isn’t alone.
Impaled fingernails,
line the curves of her spine,
and the dents in her hips.
Not just from physical touch,
but the lingering effects
of selfishness.

Friends, family, strangers, acquaintances
alike.

Her stomach has been squeezed,
by the media, by bullies,
by her own brain,
emptying its contents into
an abyss of love.

Her liver has been punctured,
with sores and burns
from the late night antics
that kept her from writing
that note.

The long sleeves may hide
the evidence,
but her insides remain
damaged forever.

Damaged.

She was labelled as damaged,
from the day she turned 9.
Her stepfather saw to that.

She was labelled as damaged,
from earlier at 5.
Her parents thrashed apart.

She spent 8 years learning
to love, when she saw
corruption, surrounding her
at every corner.

And he ruined it.
He proved to her that love wasn’t real.
She spent too long hoping,
only to find, 8 years isn’t
enough to make someone care.

Her parents.
Her stepfather.
Him.

I look at her now,
through the rose-tinted
glass that parts us,
and see a girl that was wronged.
A young girl that was robbed
of love, in any form.