I’m the beggar at the Shadowman's front doorstep

Scratching my wooden framed skin

Ash dreams roll dice for a favor

 

I want to change the moment

I didn’t walk away from our relationship

As he slipped through until it was dark

Split so I saw four of him at once

The smooth hands of abuse

The words cradled in cuts  

Made me live so hard I was dead

 

He said

“I don’t think you’ll get better”

After almost killing myself

His words held me down

In a room without walls for the watching

Expensively auctioned my malnourished body after he was finished

And I learned that just because you love a boy with everything

Doesn’t mean he’ll love you with anything back

 

It was the softest punch a man could give

So I went to the Shadowman's front door

To give me back the shadow he never could