you can't choose the game, but you can pick the battle

The little girl in the picture on the bedside table  
will forever haunt me  
a much younger image of the girl I used to be  
before I discovered the world was cruel  
and people don’t always treat us  
the way we feel we deserve to be loved  
 
I can’t deny the reasons  
I turned into a teenage whore  
or ignore the lessons I learnt  
between the violence of home  
and the thrill of drugs on the street  
 
They’ll forever be a part of me
 
I’ve lived too long in the shadows  
and I can’t separate the girl from the game  
the underhanded power play that always leaves me on top  
 
I’ve never played a game I couldn’t win  
not that I understood that  
when the only instinct I possessed  
during my blinded light moments  
was the one to stay alive  
 
Death doesn’t come easy to those of us  
that vibrate with an internal gas lamp  
hidden from the world  
the flickering smoky flame whispering that it’ll get better
if we can just hold out long enough to survive  
 
I don’t remember the better days  
before the feeling of incarceration leeched the joys from life  
but I’ve got a six year old smile to prove there was at least one  
when I was genuine and unaware of love’s prison bars  
 
And yet my mind wanders over those three little childhood words  
of “it’s not fair”  
knowing in my 20-something wisdom that the world was never fair  
though I failed to neglect realities calling  
as I fell prey to pretty words in a deadly game  
yet again  
 
No, I’ve never played a game I couldn’t win  
not that I understood that  
when the only instinct I possessed  
during my blinded light moments  
was the one to stay alive  
 
In my head I’m still a little girl  
in a grown up game of who-can-stay-alive  
never mind that the war is over  
when the memories creep through the walls of my mind  
like ghosts in a hallway  
telling me it’s not over yet  
and it never will be  
 
All the world is a game
and just like players on a chess board  
I don’t want to be a pawn
 
© Indie Adams 2013