You Did Something to Me

You did something to me

You were the one person that should have sheltered me

Set the precedence for all those that came later

Yet you paraded me like a trophy in public

Only to discard me when alone

You ostracized me for the very race that you created for me

And made me work for a love that should have been freely given

You perpetuated the wounds unhealed within you

Giving me a guilt no child should have to carry

And a shackle I struggle to unbind as an adult

Do you even care what you’ve done?

You did something to me

You were my best friend, yet you left me with her

You moved on with your life and no matter how you tried to include me

From that point on, I was an outsider

Even when I knew you were fighting battles beyond us, I tried to be everything you dreamed I would become

But you left me to the hands of another that mistreated me

Though the first neglected me, the next held me under a microscope

Only to pick me apart for faults that didn’t exist

Yet another to abandon me, though you kept coming back

My love stayed strong, you were a hero in my eyes

The start of a cycle I’ve allowed too many to repeat

Struggling to make you proud of me, to see me

To choose me like you did them

Now that you are here, I have to wonder at what cost

Do you see what you've done?

You did something to me

I was weary of you front the start

Maybe this is where I began to snuff my instincts

But I tried, because everyone said it is what I needed to do

The people that should have been there, weren’t

You presented a hope I didn’t even know I needed

Did you even see me as a child through your jealousy?

I can’t imagine treating anyone the way you did me

Much less a child

You tried to rally people against me, I didn’t even understand why

All I did was exist, yet you hated me, tried to divide me

Now that I am older, I realize that the ugliness lived inside you

I was a threat because I didn’t carry the same darkness you did

I was easy to love, easy to like, something you can’t claim

Though now a darkness lives in me from your cruelty

You taught me what I never wanted to be

How I never wanted to treat someone

What’s done is done

You did something to me

Things I don’t want to discuss

I felt disgusting, unwanted, out of control

I overcompensated thinking it would bring my power back

That it was all I had to offer

You degraded me in a way that I would degrade myself in years to follow

Things that never should have been done

You did something to me

I thought you were my friend

But only while you stood to gain from our alliance

Through your misgivings, I never threw stones

But met you with a tenderness I thought would be reciprocated

Yet when the walls crumbled around me

You laughed, just like the ones thirsting for my chaos

Destroying another thread in the web of connection

Just done

You did something to me

 I was a butterfly flying through a field, you pinned my wings

Separated me from all the things that made me beautiful

Beat me mentally, emotionally and physically

Made me afraid to be myself, to even breathe

 And then blamed me for it all

All because I represented something you knew you could never be

Free

So, you gilded me with control

Until you gave me the very thing that allowed me to fight back

But your destruction stops with me

You are done

You did something to me

I thought all the traumas of my past had made me wise

But I had never met a manipulator as cunning as you

The devil has a silver tongue too, you’d be in good company

A desire to be loved, for family, kept me too long

Denied me of the senses I had regained after losing myself so completely

Just a new version of a familiar monster

And what a monster you turned out to be

I only wish it ended with me

What have you done?

You did something to me

You used me to rebuild yourself

I thought you would choose me

But you left, just like everyone before you promised they wouldn’t

Well, that’s done

I did something to me

I abandoned myself like everyone else

Thinking my sacrifice would show my worth

I listened to them and lost myself

Something must be wrong with me, I need to change to be better

I let them hurt me, I thought love meant you stayed

That is had to be earned through endurance

If I could prove my worth, they would see me

Until I just wanted to be done

But then I did something for me

I saw myself, despite them

All their attempts to crush me under the weight of their own turmoil

I stood, I collected my pieces, I rebuilt

Every time

What I was taught to view as selfish, was me trying to love myself

The guilt they conjured, was my compassion wielded as a weapon against me

I didn’t need saving from them, just myself

The knight I longed to protect me, was a warrior within me

Snuffed by what I allowed

My fortress reinforced by boundaries I didn’t know love needed

Monsters don’t need forgiveness for being monsters

But I did, for crawling in the closet, dangling my foot off the bed

No matter what I endured, I never let it change my soul

I knew I didn’t belong, despite trying to lift them to meet me

A beauty lived in me they would never know

For a fleeting moment in time, they experienced it through me

Or perhaps they saw me discard generations of perpetuation

Going places their roots never allowed them

 Perhaps I am the real villain

To live in a cave your entire life, only to be offered the sun

And squander the opportunity

They live in darkness only to project light

Secretly consuming all in their wake

I am the sun

And though pieces of their darkness will always live in me

I will never be undone