Shadows
Abuse casts long shadows...
Twilight's purple fingers reaching
through the fog of restless, rowdy dreams.
I thrash and lash, sheets wet with sweat,
and shudder apart at the seams.
Shadowy tentacles of my father's abuse
reach deeply inside; his castigation
an ineradicable stain, that monoxide flame
of gaslighting aimed to shame.
Shadow banned within the home.
Three months pregnant, and shadowy, spectral words
rise up, billowing, like choking smoke
from my own mother's throat:
You'll be no good, you'll never cope.
Shadow darts through the heart.
Hemlock shadows locked within.
Sable-shaded fingerprints on flesh;
violent violet stormclouding my skin.
I sicken as sun coils delicately round daylight,
fade in the tainted shade of rape.
Night-tinted footprints follow me
through soiled streets of shame.
Will I ever outrun these shadows?
Can I escape my own shadow?
Will I ever rest in the velvet violet caress
of my inner evening's soft-petalled shadow?
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