“You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Something wrong happened to you.”

“It’s not us against them.”

But why does it feel that way?

I know these things are true,

Yet still they float through my ears

like so many fragile glass balloons.

Empty.

Webbed with cracks,

as if the tiniest breath of a whisper

could send them shattering,

leave my life scarred from the shards.

I just want solid answers.

I want the ringmaster to lay down his whip.

Can’t he see 

I’m broken and bloodied enough already?

I want the lights to come up,

for this mad darkness to dissipate.

I want the circus to finally end,

for the act to be over.

But I don’t know

if it would be better

for the elephant to just blare its trumpet

and let everyone know it’s here

or if it should just 

remain quiet.

Quiet. 

What is quiet anyways?

They told me I was brave for speaking out,

yet still they want to silence me.

They praised me for not staying mute,

yet isn’t that exactly what they want?

He placed me on a wheel,

spinning until my mind turned numb

with the constant fear

of being slashed by their daggers.

The daggers that he handed them,

sharpened with his words,

oiled with the notion

that I would keep quiet.

But the quiet is killing me,

sawing me in two

with a smile that looks so much like the memory of his.

And I don’t think I can put myself back together again.

The circus wasn’t made to be quiet.

They tried to cover it with a tent,

sewn with lies by their careful hand,

all the evidence hidden neatly in its seams.

Stitched tactfully,

inconspicuously,

the perfect cover-up.

But the peanut shells still trailed out.

“Will they keep me anonymous?”

“What do I say?”

“Why won’t he leave me alone?”

“Why does it feel like they’re protecting him?”

People like that

don’t deserve protection.

I’m done being the sideshow.

It’s his turn 

to be sawed in half.