Love Hung On a String

My past was not painful enough

To label traumatic:

Stuffed with chastise,

Carelessly embroidered with temper

It was unbearable 

Right up to the sharp, piercing point of impalement

The weight I bore upon my shoulders was an ounce too light 

To consider heavy

My warm wounds

Were just too shallow 

For stitches 

While the lullabies she screamed as I fell asleep,

Are now faint echoes

They were loud enough

To weave their way into my nerves,

And eternally embed 

A pattern below my skin

The revile she spewed,

Senseless yet sufficient,

Satisfied the required attention,

While neglecting the needed endurance of kindness for a child

Just as I was ready for 

My last thread to be cut,

She sacrificed a whispered,

"I love you." 

Her love,

Simply spoken,

Tore my heart to ambivalence;

I believed it over rode the fates

I'm simply a child,

Forced to grow up

Tearing at the seams 

Worn and weary from abuse;

It is too late to be mended