There’s still oxygen in my lungs, blood coursing through my veins.

You can’t possibly be leaving yet.


After all, it is most important to leave me
without even the slightest hope to heal.
You take, determined to leave nothing, just like high school.

Whispers of:
“She’s so fat!”—a swift, piercing punch to my left eye.
“She slept with him?! Whore…”—a brutal baseball bat to my knees.

You begin to walk away slowly, wondering if you have finished the job,then “You’ll never amount to anything!” a final kick to my stomach,teaching me to stay down, to cower.

You want my ‘in-case-of-emergency’ money?
Take it. It’s yours. Just like my self-esteem reserves.
It’s all gone—the ultimate lesson on how worthless I am.

I’m paralyzed now; body and mind.

You can kill me now. I have nothing left.
Grappling with God to alleviate the pain, forever,
I realize…life’s not that easy.

I struggle to stand. I wipe the blood away.
I attempt to conjure strength long gone.

Who knew the paralyzed could still walk.
It’s a miracle.