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LAShifts Jul 26
Some days, I can’t recognize who I am
A shape carved by their very hands.
No child is born broken,
It is what fate brings later,
That tests if you can survive what comes next.
Love meant to bloom in kindness and care
Withered in impatience, in words
That sliced deeper than any blade could dare.
Their voices echo in the hollow of a heart that once warm,
Now cold, a reminder of what I was never allowed to be,
only what I was molded into.
I learned to argue,
Not to be right,
But because conflict felt like control.
And when their anger raged,
I learned to go quiet,
To shrink beneath the weight of their fury and call it peace.
I found safety in running from what needed to be faced,
Not because I didn’t care,
But because standing still felt like waiting for a blow.
I mistook escape for freedom,
And I called my absence healing.
And now I carry it all,
The silence, the sparks, the running.
Not as excuses,
But as evidence of the person I was trying so hard to survive.
LAShifts Aug 12
I ran, holding on to my pride like armor,
Because loving from a distance hurt less than laying my heart bare across the table
It made me feel safe;
Like I still had control.
But in holding my heart so tightly, I kept out the very love I needed.
I thought I was keeping my heart safe, but I was  only wounding it in silence.
Their hands reached out for mine, But I pulled away,
Mistaking what could've been kindness,
Was danger.
And maybe that was the loss, not what they didn't give me,
But the gentle knock I kept ignoring until it faded.

— The End —