I was once a victim,
Beaten until I was compliant,
Compliant enough to hurt another—
my mother.

I was once a victim,
My innocence used up,
My core torn from a father I could only adore.
What is hatred to a child, but fleeting tantrums?

I was once a victim,
Slipping in my drink,
Strobing long batted eye blinks,
Her heat driving down on my forbidden rod.
She told me if I didn’t, I wouldn’t make it home.

I was once a victim,
Two days before the altar,
My fiancé souring sheets with a friend who stole everything from me.
Everything bled into colorless ravines of distrust.

Victims are strong,
Not for what they have endured,
But for what they become,
Superseding the cyclic nature of dirtied deeds.
They find solace in cautious optimism, defining strength beyond measure and measuring only by their own successes.

There may be no angels soaring high or a guy in the sky,
No balrog of the deep depths or adversary king on hell’s high throne.

But demons are real,
Whispering echoes,
Phantasmagoric memories cast upon the mind by way of
scent, sound, or touch, until the rush comes to **** us up.

The truth is,
even a hermit like me is never alone.
We victims can form like Voltron,
Together joined to heal and change the story.

A wise woman on the tv once told me
“There is no fate but what we make”

We used to meet where moments whispered fate—now time drifts past, and we're always a beat too late.