You think your words are silver threads,
Spinning lies and feeding your dread.
A smile so sweet, a voice so kind,
But I’ve seen the darkness in your mind.

You wear the mask of endless charm,
To lure and trap, to do no harm.
You crave control, you seek the stage,
A puppet master in your cage.

You play the part, you act the friend,
But all you seek is your own end.
A tale of pain, a sad disguise,
But I know the truth behind your eyes.

Your tactics tried, your charm rehearsed,
But I’ve seen the curse you’ve placed on words.
You live to feed your empty pride,
To pull the strings and twist the tide.

You cannot fool me with your game,
Your broken acts, your false acclaim.
I see you, I know your move,
And no, I will not fall for you.

So try again, play out your scheme,
But know this truth: you’re not my dream.
Your reach is weak, your touch will break,
For you can never own my fate.

They tell him he is not a flower,
not soft, not meant to sway.
A man must stand like oak and iron,
unbending in the storm’s display.

But even mountains crack with time,
and rivers carve through stone.
Still, he tucks his petals inward,
pretending he is made of bone.

He’s taught that thorns are armor,
that roots must never show,
that to bloom is to be broken,
that to weep is to let go.

But flowers starved of rain will wither,
left to shrivel in the heat.
And men, too, will turn to silence,
fearing softness makes them weak.

So let them bloom, let them bend,
let them speak their pain in sight.
For a flower wilts not from the wind,
but from the absence of its light.

It starts with fireworks,
explosions of light
too bright to question,
too dazzling to resist.
Every word is a spark,
every touch a flame
burning so beautifully
you forget the heat can hurt.

They paint the world in colors
you didn’t know you could see,
build castles in the clouds
with promises that taste
too sweet to swallow.
You believe in the fairy tale
because their voice makes it real,
because the story
is what you’ve always wanted to hear.

But the glitter fades,
the echoes grow cold,
and the castle crumbles
when the walls were never meant to stand.
You find yourself
in the ashes of their affection,
trying to piece together
what was real
and what was only a game.

The silence comes next—
a void where their voice once lived.
You wonder if it’s your fault,
if the spark died because
you didn’t burn brightly enough.
But the truth whispers slowly:
it was never your fire they craved,
only the power
of holding the match.

It is hard being a child,
let alone an adult.
I hate growing up.
I always hated the thought of it,
of leaving childhood behind—
when it was never a place
I could rest.

I was promised something better—
a new life beyond that god-awful trailer,
where the walls were too thin
to contain the hurt.
I was promised love,
safety,
a body and mind
without bruises.
I was promised the world.

But promises are just words,
and words crumble under fists.

I am not ungrateful for what I have,
but I am ungrateful
for how I was raised—
how I was brought into this world
only to be broken by it.
Adoption was supposed to be a rescue,
but even kindness can wear a mask.
And when the masks fell,
the truth cut deeper
than any wound I’d known before.

Now, I carry more stories,
more bruises
from my adopted parents
than my biological ones.
More words screamed at me,
until I was so weak,
I wanted to leave.
A child, eight years old,
should never think about dying.

Parents should be a sanctuary,
a refuge.
Mine were a battlefield.
I learned to fear growing up—
to fear failure,
to fear never being enough.

I have accepted it all:
the blows,
the scars,
the pain repackaged as love.
Because love
was something foreign
until I met my first true friend,
my first real love.

With family,
there was only war.
And in their house,
I counted the days
I thought about dying—
more than I can recall.
They failed to protect me,
to shield me from others’ harm,
and their answer
was always the same—
an empty hug,
a hollow “It’s going to be okay.”

But they never meant it.
In every argument,
they used my scars as weapons,
ripped open old wounds
just to watch me bleed.
If they understand the weight of trauma,
why do they
bring it up
to bury me deeper?

Do they really love me?
I don’t understand,
and I don’t think
I ever will.

A room in the basement,
A room that knew too much,
Too dark to leave behind.
I was tired,
Heavy with sorrow.
She never asked why—
Never asked me to speak.
The clutter in my mind didn’t matter to her.
I was dragged onto the bed,
A hand pressing into my back,
My body slammed against the wall,
Her rage leaving marks on my skin—
A scar that won’t heal.

"I don’t want to do this, but here we are."
A whisper, lost in the chaos.
Words echo through the house,
Where love is twisted,
Where kindness never crosses the doorstep.

"I’m not sure I can... ma yelled at me again."
For the smallest things,
For being human.
Her voice drowns out my heart,
Slicing through the silence.
She tells me I'm a failure,
A burden,
A disappointment.
She says she’ll pull me from school,
Keep me locked away.
Send me far from everything I dream.

She hit me,
And still, she says,
"You'll never leave. You’re going to fail."
But where do I go when pain is all I know?
When bruises map my body,
And rage paves my path?
I cry,
Not for the sting of her hand,
But for the death of my dreams.
Her words press down,
Venom laced with promises of no future.
"You’re just going to be a ghetto rat,"
She spits at my dreams of college,
And I feel it sting,
Because maybe she's right.
Maybe she’s serious about keeping me here.

I falter,
Assignments abandoned—
Not from carelessness,
But confusion,
And the walls close in.
When she touches me,
It’s not a caress,
But a painful grip,
Pinching, scratching.
Her voice hisses like a snake:
"Stop acting so self-conscious. You look ******* stupid."
Her hands on my body,
"Why does my touch make you uncomfortable? I’m not hurting you, stop it."
Uninvited,
Unwanted.
But I stay silent,
Too afraid,
Too small beneath her control.

Why does my body feel like it belongs to her?
Why does she think it’s okay to touch me
Like I’m nothing but a possession to bend to her will?
"What’s wrong, my perfect, spoiled little *****?"
Her voice smooth as poison,
"This is what you wanted."
A trap she set long ago.

I try to hold my head high,
But the ceiling feels lower every day.
Her anger shakes me,
Her wrath pushing me into the wall.
She screams at every mistake,
Even when I’m just trying to breathe.

"Z is going to be a tattooed dolled-up ****."
Her words sear,
Carving into my skin.
No matter how hard I try,
I will never be enough.
"I think you’d all be better off without me,"
Her voice trembles,
Heavy with her own misery.
But her despair is hers alone.
I’m just trying to survive the day.

"She’s not going to get a job, she’s lazy like I am."
Her words break me,
Glass shards piercing deep.
She doesn’t see me, doesn’t hear me—
Only sees her failures reflected in me.
A mirror of everything she fears.
And I am not the reflection I want to be.

No matter how loud she screams,
Her hurt doesn’t change the truth.
I am more than the sum of her expectations.
"I’m just the nasty ***** that nags and yells at everyone, aren’t I?"
Her words echo,
But they are not mine.

The house is never quiet,
Not when the walls scream with her rage.
"We’ve been in a bump since my dad moved in."
A home built on silence,
Where no one speaks the truth,
Fearing the storm it might wake.
"I feel like we’re doing all this just to get X into high school and college."
But what of me?
What of my hopes that fade in the corners of my mind?
What of the quiet nights
When I hear her rage but never her love?

"Maybe we should’ve never adopted Y and Z."
I drown in her words,
In the pit of their failures.
Because I’m not just a kid—
I’m a punching bag.
And her fists land on my body,
But the damage runs deeper than skin.

"I don’t care if I ruin it all, I’m leaving."
Her rage blinds her to the harm she causes.
Her fists, her words—
They shatter me.
I am left alone in the wreckage,
Wondering how to rebuild myself,
How to make her see me.

In my dreams, I flee,
But the house always calls me back,
With its cold floors and walls that whisper lies.
"We’re messy people,"
She says.
But it’s not the mess in the house—
It’s the mess in our hearts.

A house built on silence,
A body that wasn’t mine,
And a truth still hidden between the walls,
I’m still trying to speak.

I was carrying a castle Lego set,
Walking into the room with hands full,
But the room was messy,
The floor a trap.
I tripped,
A misstep,
And the castle crashed,
A thousand tiny pieces scattered—
Shattered like the calm before the storm.

Her eyes burned with fury.
And then—
The first blow hit.
A slap to my face.
Her hand, heavy and fast,
Like a thunderclap that split the air.

She grabbed me by my hair,
Fingers tight like claws,
Yanking me down,
Screaming.
Punches to my head,
Fists that felt like bricks.
And when I didn’t fall fast enough,
She slammed my face into the wall.
The concrete cold and unforgiving.

She didn’t stop.
She kicked me.
Stomped on me.
Before she shed the weight,
She weighed two hundred pounds or more—
And her anger had no limits.

She climbed on top of me,
Crushing me beneath her,
Screaming in my ear—
Words that were sharper than the blows.
A blur of rage and hatred,
And I couldn’t breathe.

My father,
He came when he heard the noise,
Dragged her off me,
Locked her away,
But the damage was done,
And my body bore the marks.
Bruises, scratches, teeth imprints,
Pain that carved its memory deep.
But the hate didn’t stop there.

I remember everything.

When I lied about something—
Something I can’t even recall now.
And she made me clean—
The whole house.
From top to bottom.
Exhausted,
I collapsed into the bathroom,
My body aching.

When she found me,
Resting,
She turned the world to fire.
The beating began again—
She screamed,
Threw appliances at me,
Shoved me against the walls.
My head was shoved into the toilet,
Into the sink—
Water and metal,
Cold and suffocating.

She bit my ears,
Screamed so loud,
Everything went muffled.
Her words were poison,
Sharp and biting.
The towels hit me,
Wetted and cruel,
Like whips lashing my skin.

She sprayed cleaning products—
In my face,
On my body,
Tears mixing with chemicals.
And I had no escape.

I remember everything.

I remember what it felt like to be nothing but the target of her rage,
Her disappointment wrapping itself around me like chains.
I remember her words—
Filling the empty spaces in the house,
Breaking me down,
Every scream,
Every hit,
Until all I could do was survive.

But the hardest part—
Was that even after it all,
I still wanted her love.
And I couldn’t escape her shadow,
Even when the bruises healed.