Listen –

Don’t talk to me like you know.
You don’t know anything, not about me,
not about my life.
And. Nothing. About. Then.

Don’t beg me to speak and then admonish my tale
by asking inane and stupid questions, those whose
answers still terrify me.

Still, you claim you understand in a manner most haughty and
under the guise of concern when I know with no doubt,
fragile thing that you are, that you’d never live through it yourself.

Blindness is Judge and Hangman’s Jury.

The judgment isn’t in your words but in how you say them,
so when again you ask why I’m still here instead of giving in,
then, for the millionth time, all that I can say with a sigh is this –

I did. Often.
And yet, still I breathe.

©MelanieMcCurdie2017

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