I don’t know
How this is where I came to be.
They said, “Stay away,” and now this is where I’ll linger.

I came, searching, because you would not show me plainly.
I came, hardly aware, of how bright the sky could be,
Of how solid death could be,
Of how dim and weak my life has been.

They said, “Don’t! Because…what if?” And now the what-if’s are all I see;
They’re shroud in gold, and freedom, and peace.
All the what-ifs I was made to fear
Now walk besides me hand-in-hand
Afraid of me.

I came here searching, propelled by voices you said in my youth
Would lead only to greater fears.
And I feared, as only a young girl can fear.
You preyed, and you clawed,
And you sucked me in, deep,
To claw away my eyes, and stop my ears, and numb my skin.

But now my eyes are clear
My ears are clean, and
My skin will feel all you said would end in regret.

My only regret is you.

I don’t know,
How reality and you agreed
On this time.
I don’t know how either of you could have thought
It was worth it to waste mine.

I came here broken,
Bloody lines down my skin,
Fragments of mind scattered to the wind,
Running to you, my only perceived sure reality.

I came here broken
Only to find
My perceived sure reality
Laughing at my skin,
Planning for the wind,
All because I was born
Man-made and not god-made.

So now I turn to see the
God-made
And see that
All along
God-made and man-made
Cannot bind.

I came here afraid
And weeping
For the life taken from me at first breath.

I came here searching
And trying
To find, for once, life I could be good enough to live.

Now I turn
And see
That your “life”
Has nothing on me.