To Let Her Mind and Heart Corrode

You were not left to grow strange within the walls of a cage
You were not beaten and hungered and weak
You were not left in the dark to rot like a rat
Like a lost child
Left in a vile, putrid place
To let her mind and heart corrode
And sink into the earth

These things were not done to you
And yet you recoil from my touch
As if it might burn you
And poison you like me

You were not left in the dark
Like a lost child
To let her mind and heart corrode
These things were not done to you

These things were done to me
And my scarred face
My tangled hair
My bleeding lips
My cursing tongue
My wild eyes

You were not left in the dark
To rot like a stinking rat
To become like a rat
Like vermin
To know not love
Or a mother’s kiss
Or a father’s playful scold

How am I to act
When I have not learnt these things
How am I to be
Left in the dark
Like a lost child
To let her mind and heart corrode
To rot like a stinking rat