Breaking Silence

That night
the belligerence and chaos
were too far along their courses
to be controlled.

Your familiar face hid
something unfamiliar.
I was curious
to find what lay behind
your baited smile.

No one saw you sweep me away.
No eye saw your long fingernails scratch
the door handle open
-pull me inside.

Four years past you ask
if I’ve found forgiveness inside
my proclaimed quiet.

You left bruises on my days.
You ripped light away
as the night does to the innocent
glow of evening.

Trust to dust-
begs to demands
-smiles to screams.

No one can erase scars with words.
“Sorry” -always like the water
that drips from roofs
-falling to the ground,
becoming meaningless in a matter
of hours.

Forced secrecy kept
my trust shrieking
cold. Bitter in my silence
-You knighted me
with the sole
title: alone in this.

My lips quivered;
my throat begged.
Sobbing -never good enough
for the pain that has been set
this deep within the concrete
walls of my confusion.

You cut my vocal chords.
You stomped on my certainty
with a violence that only one
evil arm, angled toward the sky,
fingers tight together,
could salute -knowing
how horror filled
your act was.

Your last words
before I lost
myself: “Do not scream,”
and finally I can shatter the
silence that you planted;
I am screaming for my being.