Saskia Eugene Poet Rhyme

Twenty Years a Mistress

Twenty years a mistress, quietly worn from within
Learning how to enter rooms I was never meant in
I carry other people’s secrets under my skin
Call it choice, call it flaw, call it paying for sin

I’ve been the pause in marriages, the breath between vows
The place men go when they can’t be husbands somehow
I know the rules, I don’t ask to be seen
I stay soft, I stay silent, I stay in between

I feel the guilt, yes, it keeps me awake
I feel the shame every promise I help them break
Stopping feels harder than staying unclean
I’ve taught myself this is all I should be

I tell myself I deserve the dark
The way love never quite leaves a mark
That being hidden is fair, is right
That I’m only meant for borrowed nights

There is a man who claims my name
Who hold my hand without whisper or shame
He wants the world to know I’m his
But I flinch from a love that looks like this

Because I don’t deserve that kind of light
And he doesn’t deserve my internal fight
He doesn’t deserve my fractured trust
Or the way I confuse love with lust

I stay where I already know the cost
Where I am wanted but never chosen, never lost
Where no one expects me to be whole
Just warm, willing, useful, easily controlled

At night I cry where no one can hear
Counting the years, the men, the fear
I hate myself for the life I defend
For the way I keep choosing the same bitter end

Twenty years of proving I’m easy to keep
But impossible to love without losing sleep
I wear my self-loathing like something earned
A lesson learned but never unlearned

I know this isn’t freedom, I know it’s a cage
But cages feel safer when you’ve lived in them for an age
So I lie to the mirror, I lie to my pain
And tell myself secrets are all I can claim

Twenty years a mistress, and still I stay
Hating myself a little more every day.

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