Survive

So much time has passed,
Since I last picked up the pen and wrote what my heart cried,
So much time has passed,
Since I realized my torn and tattered past had broken me.

I remember my days of ignorance,
Where all I could think was,
It will get better, I just have to wait.
But the days did not get easier,
The pain did not lessen, it grew.

Now I waste away in patient agony,
As I feel my walls crumble and fall,
I realize my days of ignorance have long since passed,
Now I face my future with this horrendous past.

Oh, how I wish I could scream in sorrow,
For who I once was, I will never be,
Oh, how I wish I could gnash my teeth in anger,
To condemn those who have hurt me.

But no grinding of teeth or bellows will keep my past from haunting me,
It stalks me like a shadow and holds my hand like my beloved,
How I loathe it's sneaking, friendly nature,
How I hate this cage that has captured and protected me.

For without my past I would not be here today,
I would not know the anguish of being trapped within my own mind.
Nor would I know the ignorant joy of it,
But now I have stepped foot out of the cage,
And once again opened my heart to the world.

And have found that the world is painful,
It stabs like a frigid knife while pretending to be a bed of warm coals,
It makes me wish that I had spoken out,
It makes me wish that I had not been so afraid.

But now as I sit here contemplating my past,
I recognize that I could not have done anything to change it,
I could not stop my brother's depression,
My mother's emotional abuse,
My father's alcoholism,
Because I was a child,
All I could do was survive.