The barbed cycle of abuse
Spins and turns
The perpetrator roams free
No lessons learnt

Constantly escaping
The scales of justice
Fiercely holding its victim
In its angry clutches

Caught in its web
Of control and manipulation
Bound by a billion threads
Powerless under its jurisdiction

Unable to think
Independently
The persecuted victim
Destroyed psychologically

No immunity to fight
The toxic onslaughts
Be they physical, emotional
Or their own Stockholm-syndrome like thoughts

Effectively caged and imprisonned
From systematic debasement
Lacking the self-belief
To fully escape the situation

The abuser in denial
Anything untoward took place
Adopting the ‘victim’ mentality
Now this spider has fallen from grace

Delusional to the hilt
The lies trip from its tongue
The threats pour forth in a torrent
Now it’s victim has tried to run

But the victim begins to falter
The road ahead unclear
Soiled and slippery from the oil slick
The abuser upon it did smear

Sliding backwards
Into the pit of despair
The victim weakens
Descending there

The arms outstretched
To save this poor mite
Not quite strong enough
To wrench the victim out of its plight

Thus the cycle
Engages once more
Spinning and turning
Just as before.