Let Them Come

Let Them Come

The nights when they come
I am made of ash
not bone
not flesh
just the burnt remains
of someone who once believed
she was worthy of love.

I don’t cry
I break
Quietly
In the middle of conversations
in the middle of rooms

I smile
but I am already vanishing

My thoughts
they aren’t mine anymore
They’re demons wearing my voice

They curl up in my mind
coiled and venomous
and whisper things I’m too tired
to keep fighting away

You were too much
Never enough
It’s your fault
You deserved it
No one will ever love you

And I believe the voices

Because the truth is
I’ve been the collateral damage
in every kind of love

I’ve been the child parents never wanted
the girl they thanked for the lessons
the teen they never picked for their team
the woman whose husband shattered her

I walk through some days
like I’m made of glass
praying no one touches me
hard enough to shatter
what little I’ve managed to hold together.

I try to cling onto hope
but it always slips
Like water through bloodstained fingers
In a war I didn’t start
But can’t seem to stop fighting

My past doesn’t knock politely
It crashes in uninvited
Like a siege -guns blazing
It drags me back
to nights I begged to forget
Violating my memories
Defiling my dreams
that still smell of fear.

I remember every scream
I bit down on until my jaw ached
Every time I called
my silence strength
Whilst breaking quietly behind closed doors

So no one would ever see the wreckage

But I’m done pretending.
If my demons want a fight
then let them come.

Let them bite
Let them sink their jagged claws
into every wound that never healed

Let them replay the shame
the silence
the nights I thought ending it
might finally bring peace

Because I have teeth too
And rage
And fire

I will rip them from my skull
if I have to
One tortured thought
at a time.

They want me broken
Too late
I already was
But I built something
from the remnants

A warning
A blade
A voice that shakes
but still speaks

So let them come
Let them scream
Let them reach for the pieces
they used to play with

the soft woman

the shattered woman
the woman who begged

She is gone

In her place stands something
wrought from fire and grief
stitched together by every time
she wasn’t saved
and rose anyway

I am not a storm

I am the beast beneath the bed
the one they swore didn’t exist
Fangs carved from forgotten prayers
claws dipped in my own blood

I do not flinch
I do not run

I have learned to feast
on everything that tried to destroy me

So if they want war
let them find out
I am the thing my demons fear
in the dark.
I am not theirs
I never was
And now
Now I hunt them.