I am free
or supposed to be
Each new sentence you sprout
Has another bar coming down
I walk into invisible walls
I wasn't claustrophobic before this
Now the air feels like cement in my lungs
A step forward is a step out of line
Anything you don't want to hear is wrong
I am a porcelain doll
Unheard
A pawn in my own life
You play out your ambitions through
When did I become so weak?
When did I give up?

As a small child, the straps
that held me in my carseat
were the worst torture
imaginable. I remember straining
against them with all the might
in my tiny body, knowing
it was hopeless. Your silences
have become the car-seat-straps
of my life now. From the outside
they waited, beckoning in sheer
inevitability, and from the inside
I can see no way out
without ripping you in two.

They ask me why I'm sorry,
But how can I reply?
struggling to find the words
but choking and drowning instead.

Memories flash by
muddled with contempt
of his hands around my throat,
of a bloodied fist and bat.

It must have been my fault,
in fact I was told it was.
The bruises and burns
form stripes across my body
and it must have been my fault.

"You're a *****"
he'd say
"A worthless swarthy *****,
and you don't deserve to be here-
you deserve to die"

so prompt and adament in my mind
feeling my weak bones shiver and snap
as they recall a bloodied bat bruising my childhood's skin
again and again
and again
and again
and again
and again...

I'm sorry.
I'll never know what I did
to make them all hate me
to make him hate me
they say we are blood
but does blood have that much hate?
three other siblings-
they did nothing wrong
It was me
and always me
that had to apologize.

I don't know what I did,
so I'll say I'm sorry
I'll apologize for everything in sight
to make up for the little girl
who couldn't be sorry enough.

People sometimes tend to quit or fall apart when
Something gets too big
But want it more when it small
If you have a small problem
Do you want more?
When you have a big problem
You just die?
Well don't quit
Just stand tough
So you solutions will too


-Shane Wicks