My Criminal Past

It’s all too much I try and try yet things just don’t happen right for me Just when I think situations may just turn around Out of the blue it comes to haunt me My criminal past   Years ago I was in a store  trying on a red scarf around my neck wanting to be good to myself for a moment When my father called and I fell to the floor I remembered everything I guess I walked out not realizing I still wore the scarf And so they took me that day they took me in chains Removed me without respect not as a child-like woman a damaged soul someone in need of repair But rather, as a criminal Yet, I was the victim not the perpetrator I was hit with the truth by my father on the phone that day in the store while trying on the red scarf I saw it all in pictures and it didn’t stop for days months years afterward Even so, I lost the little place I lived due to My criminal past While my 97 year old “father” lives on, I sleep all the time am hurt all over again remembering it all For some inexplicable reason I felt it my responsibility to tell the man who owned my little home to convey to him why I was a criminal  and how it came to be  I took a chance Because I did that I chose to reveal that thing that was so secret and hurt myself so gravely that no one has mercy on me now Out of luck, there was no escaping How can I break free from all that binds me that tethers me to these pictures repeated I long to grow up like other girls with clean lives But my criminal past is a chain around my ankle As I wait for that moment of transformation, I wretch my guts out and can’t stop remembering……