I met a monster
and I called her mother,
dangerous to no one other
than myself.

Every night she would berate me
make me think that she hates me
as she violently laid her hands on me.

I feel like I would have been safer
in the arms of any stranger,
cuz a decent person
wouldn't put that kind of hurting
on someone they claimed to love.

All the years that I lived with her
I learned how to suffer
indignities like they were trivialities,
and with each verbal and physical attack
I learned how to turn my mind black
and inwards towards
my own sharpened sword
as I skewered myself.