Broken

Here I am, trudging this road of broken chains and blood stains, listening to the winds gently humming Harriets name. I strain my ears to listen as I vaguely hear. The sounds of police surrounding my neighborhood because someone forsook their freedom card for the right to say..."I GOTTA MAN' Was it worth it? Bruised flesh and broken bones illuminate like clouds on a stormy day. Here I am, attempting to understand, yet pushing the brush out of the way allowing the thorns to only stick pierce the air, not my soul. I have awakened out of my mental slumber, yet I still sacrifice, giving of myself so those who are the wounded might be healed. She is broken. I see her face in the faces of so many women and my heart hurts for her, my hands tremble in anger at what we do all in the name of love. Is it love? When does love become pain, and why do we desire that which can destroy our very lives and the lives of our children? I look at her, I cringe at her bruises. Tears attempt to fill my eyes, but strength allows me to hold them back as I say to her. 'Can I help you?' Knowing her pain is too deep to allow her words, I sit with her and my mind goes back to when I was her. Not all that long ago, I sat in her world just to be able to say that same anthem that she sings to us all. I will not judge. I will be a friend and try show her she can live life like it's golden, but like me, she has to want it.....

....surveying the damage, the doctor stares at me solomely. 18 stiches, a broken arm, several broken ribs, and a dead baby inside me. I remember saying, I'll never allow him to do this to me again. I am not her, I'm stronger than this pitiful woman I have become. As the surgical staff prepares to remove the dead fetus from my body, my heart decides to stop for several moments so that God can speak to my soul. 'Don't go back' he says. You are to live and sometimes death must come for life to be in its proper perspective.' I awoke in tears, belly now empty, heart broken, but I never went back. Even if in my mind I go back each day to remind myself, I have come from somewhere dark. I am not ashamed. I was broken. I now live.