i remember back in the fifth grade
when the other girls sat on my lawn
laughing and smiling and petting the horses
and looked me deep in the eyes
and ignored me

i remember the way my mother screamed
my name in the dead of night
and i closed the glass door
cringing and crying, wishing she loved me
still even after im suddenly a nuisance
i thought she said
i could come to her about anything

it's there where i realized
im not always loved

i remember the way my father
told me i would never walk again
i remember them telling me
i would never dance the way
that the other kids do

i remember them telling me
that the demons in my head
were the devil trying to possess me
and not some symptom
of a issue i struggled with

i prayed and i prayed
for the demons to go away
and i made myself
exactly everything
they wanted me to be
and it still wasn't enough

i remember standing there
at the top of the gym
heart shattered as i realized
i would never be
a prom queen
as i realized that this school
never loved me

i remember his mothers voice
on the phone
asking if he was alright
and hearing his voice crack
as he told her it wasn't

and crying in the car
as my own heart splintered in two
at a crisis of faith
crisis of morals
crisis of everything
an unspeakable battle
with a god who created me as something he hated

i remember her staring
at the for sale sign in the yard
thinking that
it was the worst it would ever hurt

it wasn't
you had hurt before
it hurt again
that wasn't the worst it would ever be