You Don't Define Me

Look at me from the outside, and I know just what you see, You see the flirty girl who pretends to call herself me. You call her names, you ridicule, and you talk behind her back, You say that’s no way for her to be, that’s no way for a lady to act. But what you’ve never done is what is key, You’ve never asked what the story is, so that you too may see.. This girl you think you know is not me at all, If the troubles you thought you knew were all I had, it’d consider them small. You know that I spent my early years being passed around, You think that’s the reason for my actions that astound. It’s not the passing of my adolescence that hurts the most, It’s being in that dark basement the night my heart was lost. Betrayed by a man who should have protected me, Having my own brother take the innocence every girl needs. Living my life being left by the people who are supposed to stay, Needing nothing more than love, instead only giving it away. So before you decide to call me a slut or a whore, Maybe take the time, go ahead and ask “Is there something more?” My story does not define who I am today, But I won’t deny that it affected me along the way. Decisions were made and lessons learned, But the strength and dignity was mine to be earned. Don’t you dare strip me of that victory because of your judgmental mind, For now you know the struggles and the trials that I must leave behind