Can’t You See That I’m Unbreakable?

Can you see it in my eyes?
Eyes that for hours were empty
but for crying tears,
releasing pain,
seeing and showing nothing.

Can you hear it in my voice?
From my throat, raw red from screams
that eventually died, too
when silence felt less like surrender
and more like a numbing escape.

And can you feel it on my skin
when you brush my cheek or thigh?
Can you feel it when you touch me,
somehow knowing
that your hands
are wanted,
but that others
in the very recent past
were not.

Not at all.

On the outside I’m brave
but inside it’s black as the night,
blurry as the room
and bitter as the drink I took one sip of.
One sip.
Cold as the bed that I laid upon
naked,
wondering if what just happened to me
could already be seen in my eyes.

It’s an unrelenting simplicity,
this is. No need for word play,
when you destroyed life’s greatest game
and thought I’d be cool with looking under the bed
for all the lost pieces.
I am not vengeful. I am not mad.
I am fiercely and furiously emboldened.

Can you see it in my eyes?
That I’ve been through a bashing hell?

That I’m strong, unbreakable, uncracked,
and am not letting you push me out of this game?
Screw you, twisted society.
I refuse to forget because I want to remember.
You can’t silence, or bruise, or blind me,
can’t rape my spirit or take my name.

I’m a fucking phoenix.
Can you see that in my eyes?