Learned Helplessness
Do you think they hear you when you scream?
Do they hear a certain silent deathliness in your voice?
And can they see the wound in your gaze?
I never knew that long dead girl
You say I so closely resemble.
I cannot become her for you. Who was she, really?
Remember 'vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord'?
I remember those kneeling times, acquiescence.
Pleading you would not see him writhe...
Rather, that he should finally stop.
These fragilities and vulnerabilities...are God-given.
But why?
An apologia for my every breath, I am so very sorry.
But each one can be found wanting.
Desiring to shed this despicable skin,
That was first rendered like filth to me, all those years ago.
My lessons in self-depreciation come with a hefty price.
When will it be acceptable to love me for me?
Holding that the Mind is above all things, most tempestuous.
There is no safety in sleep, I tremble still from these spectres.
I am as lowly as, perhaps lowlier, than the haint that has shadowed me most.
Grievious wrongs, that could not be articulated, nor delineated.
Lord knows she tried to speak her truth as only she could.
How on earth does a child say she was raped?!
Another passive suicide, it has left us all to vow,
'I would rather lie down and die, than to live through this again.'
Shades of multiplicity, she is so afraid to lose control like before,
And let the child free...but only then, can it begin to end.
I submit to you, we must go to those places that scare us so.
How then can the victim mentality dissipate when these things happen so often?
This is how she learns to fear the men...
...yet longs for two masculine arms.
This is how she learns to fear the dark...
...but still must first walk through night.
This is when she understands no future...
...yet somehow must begin to heal.
And this is when she understands no shelter...
...but wants to live in her own heart again.
We all should know by now, that there are as many questions,
As there are stars. Yet the answers are precious few.