if you take advantage
of someone's weaknesses

that is
n o t
love

you are not who
everybody wants you to be

you are you
and that is far
more than enough

i am locked within a cage
of my own making
my hands and feet are ******
from trying to climb these walls
made of my own bones and hatred

i am screaming please don't leave
but by the time the words
make their way up to my mouth
from this prison
only the word
leave
escapes my mouth

i hope one day
if not soon
you see that
her and i
do not have the same
hair color
skin color
eye color

my name is mine
and hers is hers
we are different sizes
we have different voices
my history is more than a few
textbooks you receive throughout high school
where hers is just a chapter

she is easy you see
and me
well i am complicated
i am the destruction left in the wake
of when a hurricane and tsunami meet

please stay
even though i am rough
but know
i am not her
i am me

in college i was asked
if i could compare myself to anything
but a human
what would i be

most of the class
said a tree
the ocean
a flower
the wind
but not me

i am an onion
hardened on the outside
but as you take your finger
and peel
and peel
and peel

you find that
the layers of my life
have left you in tears
happy
or sad

that choice is up to you

darkness
my old friend
turned lover
turned enemy

i have missed you
creeping up on me in the night
stealing my blankets

leaving me cold
in the middle of winter
where daylight savings
does not exist
and there is only you

darkness

we live in a world
where the mans
voice outshines the woman's

but doesn't society realize
the women carries you
inside her womb for 9 months
she takes care of not only herself
but the child she bares

she feeds herself and you
she nurtures herself and you
through every foot pain
every bit of exhaustion
she carries you

the next time a man
tells you your voice
is not worth his time
or societies time

remind him
that the woman
is a warrior
she is a QUEEN

My name is Erin
and i was *****
at the age of 7

it has taken me
14 years of my life
for those 13 words to escape
my hollow mouth

the only questions i come to now
is why
why lock me in that room
why take everything from me
my innocence
my purity
my childhood

in that room
where my family trusted you
where i trusted you
the night terrors i have to this day
still haunt my mind

like a never ending
drive in movie that plays
over
and
over
only the moon in the night sky
isnt made to be found here
there is no light in these terrors

i cant sleep this time of year
because every time i do
its you
in that room
locking the door
shutting the windows
******* me
yelling at me
every single night
i close my eyes

it has taken me 14 years
to accept the fact that i was taken by you
i have been numb ever since
left in the dust
rotting away at the core
thinking i was nothing
thinking i deserved nothing
because you took everything

but not anymore
i will recover from this
i am strong enough
i believe in myself
i believe in my own happiness
and i promsie
that when i have children one day
i will never ever let them rot at the core
i will find happiness
the darkness will not take over this time