This was born out of a conversation with a friend regarding the proliferation of abused citizens in online BDSM communities. We were discussing the strength it requires to survive a devastatingly abusive relationship (parental, spousal, etc.) and how so many who are truly abused don’t really want to talk about it or share those intimate details because it’s too painful, to personal.

She Walks in Silence
(with apologies to Lord Byron)

She said
“It’s my pain.
My hurt.
You wouldn’t understand
and I don’t have the
strength to tell you.
I’ve used it all up
trying to survive.”

And so it goes.

She moves through life
as if living in a dream,
blurry and undefined.
Nothing is as it seems.
There is no past,
no future.
She’s not even sure
who she is anymore.

She is the
walking wounded.
Shell-shocked,
having been under
attack for longer
than she cares to remember.
Her cries unheard.

Yet, she realizes
there must be something
that made her live.
Something that gave
her the power
to get out.
To start anew.
To begin again.

A newborn babe
in a grown body
trying to learn
how to live
once again
in a different
type of world
than she’s
been
accustomed
to
in
the
past.