*"Victim no more" is what spiritual
bypassers tell us to say we are now,
but I know that’s not true
I’m stronger (numb now) and
by choice,
completely
alone

I talk to God and the Holy Family,
and meditate on the New Kingdom because
I never had a place that felt like home

Everything’s uneven from feeling
so torn.
Everything is blue from feeling
your scorn.

Opening up only leaves me
with frustration
after having to put up
with a sociopath’s provocation

The fluorescents gleam
with their cold, bleak beams
and overwhelm
my senses with stimulation

Why do I bother with
an explanation
when my classmate uses
that information
to cause me undue agitation?

More anxiety at every station
and the scamming airy conductor
does not care as he stamps the
traumatized human’s passport
at every new lair.

Who will win? The tortoise or the hare?
Will you race through the lessons
you have to learn?
Or will you go slow and steady
as the butter churns and the world turns?

Toll
After toll
How my soul has been driven cold.
It burns rubber and I hover for shade,
returning undercover.

I sit by myself in the meadow
and wonder which is worse:
the disappointing silence
and no will to converse?
Or the gaslighting from
narcissists that has always
been my curse?*