Isn’t this the peace you craved?
To be sheltered, held, secure
Even when the hand you should fear
Is washing your back at night.
Didn’t you ask for this?
To be coddled in a love
So heavy it turned conditional,
Stripping the innocence from your child like skin.
They reached for the wreckage,
But your wrists are smooth, unmarked.
How can they prosecute a breaking
That lacked a captor?
How can they name the crime
when the door was always open,
and you simply didn’t move?
You just leaned back into the water,
And let the same hand that broke you,
rinse the salt from your skin.