I crawled away from you The way a dog deserts its pack to die And you all Watched me make my slow progress across the floor Inch By Inch And you did nothing. You saw, and I saw you see And you saw me see you pretend to know nothing. And now I am alive again Awake and able. The shadows of my suffering still follow at my heels, trying to trip me as I walk, and scurry behind doorjambs and under tablecloths when I turn to catch them but, I no longer crawl. I no longer struggle. And as I have woken and made my weary way back to humanity I have found that my complete transformation My journey into hell and through the fires- The torment that forged me into something utterly new, I find that you look past it Let your eyes slide over me like you used to Unwilling to ask, Unwilling to know and yet your false knowing sets off bombs The ones I walk so lightly over Grenades buried beneath the tender green new grass Which covers the battlefield where I fought for my life, for my status as a human being, for my place in this world, And you say "We all fight." "Everyone struggles." Of course To hurt is to be human. Everybody does- But not everyone Sits back and watches another crumble to dust, Not everyone says Well It isn't my problem if they can't cope, Not everyone looks with eyes So cold Upon a bleeding, broken thing And concludes that because it bleeds when beaten it invites its wounds. And as you look past me As you name me by a word I no longer recognize All I can think is that I fought I won At a cost And I am still not fully healed, And yet I am the same to you Either way You who are supposed to see You who are supposed to be Observers Of the human condition- Observers, not bystanders! Nowhere is it written that you must take notes-- 'Oh yes, see how her lip trembles as she cries See how she fights for breath.' Nowhere is it set down in stone that you can't Get up and at least pretend to be like they are These people you look at And study And pin to your pages like butterflies catalogued. Can you feel? Did you Feel? Did you look into my eyes and see me Decimated And blame me? And never ask me the truth? And create your own? Did you really think I could forget being In the center of a circle Of lies I had to agree with to survive Shredding my pride for the sake of my place? My place, indeed, In a place where emotions are bought and sold But never owned or treasured. You watched me fight Life or death You, whose arms I've fallen into when I could have hit the floor, You who I am supposed to trust with my soul and its dark wounded parts You who I am supposed to grow with. You watched me and You let me Fight Alone.