Do you think she’ll witness my downfall
When she goes to hell?
Do you think she’ll feel the anguish of empathy?
Do you think she’ll find a way to introspect
Instead of projecting?
That would cause her suffering.
I won’t be grouped in with fools
Who discharge ressentiment
With dreams of those who’ve wronged them
Suffering more than they have...
But I know it must discharge somewhere.
What constrains me?
The stunted superego
Suffocates the id
Holds it down and kicks it;
A child beaten
Tells itself
It doesn’t want to hurt its family
Until the day it’s realized
That it can’t.
And then, its spirit broken
Lays dormant, a pressure cooker
Tells itself it doesn’t want to rise
To cope with having fallen.
It stays silent and still long after left
Alone.
Retreated so far into itself
That now it fails to recognize
The threat is gone –
The abuse goes on
Long beyond it’s ended.
She told me she loved my poetry,
That I inspired her to write
About her father.
I should have seen it coming then
It was no different from before -
I let myself be used again
I have no excuse.