Freedom Cry

If your words
were fists,
I’d be black
and blue.

I wouldn’t
really exist;
I’d be nothing
but walking
scar tissue.

But then maybe
you’d see
all the damage
you’ve done to me,
and the world
would finally
see it too.

Until then,
I could pretend
they are
a string of syllables
falling out your mouth,
nothing sensible
anyone can make out;
nothing that can hurt
or denounce
or discriminate
or sound
like hate -

just utterances
of love,
of what was,
of being enough,
and all the other stuff
you are too tough
to say.

Now it’s too late.

No one knows
what you did.
Only my memory
of it exists.
Only I am the one
who has to live
with it,
and the shadows
and the scars
you left.

But I am
still here,
and there is
only one thing
I know for sure:

you can’t hurt me
anymore.