Washing the Wreckage

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.