I’m sitting between blank walls
they move closer as I let her speak
That passenger who fights me
from the past.
I defend on impulse
overpowered by the urge
to control and obliterate,
The drive for pain
as relief.

She’s a shameful haunting
so I keep her cowered in the dark
and like all the others
I ignore her suffering.
With gritted teeth I force her away
but I’m followed by her living wound
She survives to remind me
of that permanent, pulsing pain.

I can’t drown the injustice
and the rage won’t suffocate
I can’t escape her panic in my dreams
keeping me frozen in fear
repeating her nightly terror
in a cruel echo of the memories.

Relentlessly she punishes me
for someone else’s crimes.

Photo: Dako Huang, Creative Commons.