Strong Again

I won't ever be the victim again. I won't explain myself and my choices any longer. I don't owe you or anyone else a damn thing. It is just me and my family and our happiness.

You open your mouth and the flies come out.

Your whiskey-drenched, curdled breath

is lined in lies and manipulation.

Thinking you own the world,

and I owe you. Wrong again.

They might see you as pained

by everything you think I've ever done;

blindness obscuring a false sense of sacrifice,

but me, I'm living truth, strength and absolution.

I won't ever let you break me again.

I see your tar and bloodstained lips of deceit,

and I raise you a phoenix rising from the fucking mud.