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About This Poem
Now I Am Free from My Step-parent
A life of beauty and happiness denied, of innocence
smothered like a flame, I have always lived; but when
I hear your lovely voice, my Lisa--
now I am free.
I was dead before I even entered into this world, a
place cruel and without feeling, cruel and without
the love and understanding I finally know in the rich
harmonies of your voice, my Lisa--
which sets me free.
Before I could even hope to bloom like a sensual
flower caught breathless and naked in the first, rainy
sunbeams of spring a great evil--the threatening,
inner hostility of a dark figure overflowing with
bigotry--transformed me into a joyless
waste of ashes.
From that terrible moment on I fought all the ugly
and horrible assaults as his unwilling possession, a
gladiator in the arena of his constant abuse and
myriad threats, subject to his occasional hostile
looks from
across the dinner table.
But when I hear your voice and imagine its tender-
ness and compassion as an unearned gift meant for
me despite him and my child-like self-loathing:
I feel the love and self-worth denied me, taken from
me simply because it was too easy to not rape from
a child whose only fault was that he was born
defenseless and
white.
O Lisa! Because of the music of your lovely voice--
now I am free! Free from my years as a gladiator in
the arena of his constant abuse and attacks;
free to bloom like a sensual flower caught breathless
and naked in the first, rainy sunbeams
of Spring again!
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