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You make me feel like a child again
But never in a good way
You make me feel hopeless and powerless
I have no will, no voice, no say

The words that you have spoken 
Can never be unsaid
Even if you took them back
They're still playing in my head

Mother's guilt is a shallow grave
Where thoughts of failure never die
They never really lay to rest
No matter how hard I try

And you have given then new life
As they are screaming in my head
But you just continue moving along
As if they were never said

Of the many mistakes I have made in my life
The greatest was to stay
Maybe if I had walked differently
Things wouldn't be this way

But here I'm trapped because they are
And I don't know how to leave
As I think of what should have been
I'm left alone to grieve

I'm left with your angry words
And you with your justification
All I know is this mental video loop
Keeps playing without cessation

I don't see myself as a victim
Though that's one lie you spread
I see myself as a fool
Who failed to use her head

And the poison pervades my spirit
Because I continue to drink it in
But it's when I pour it back out
That it then becomes my sin

Through such angry words
I know something has died
But something has also been birthed
And won't be forever denied

My prayers have changed profoundly
And I'm willing to fight and scrape
I'm keeping my eyes looking up
Looking for the door of escape

by Diana DePriest
©November 16, 2015