In Exile

I lie awake feeling weak. I followed your path expecting to find myself on it. I made my dreams small and searched for ways to be worthy. I disappeared to give you more room for yourself thinking you would find me there eventually. Your contradictions kept me focused and I learned to hear only the best parts of you and make them into the best parts of me. I chided myself for wrong parts of me and could not see anything wrong with you. You were the ideal I was striving to be more like.

You expected perfection from me so as not to draw attention to your own misgivings. When I needed you most, you picked away at parts of me like a crow feeding on pieces of rotting flesh. You fed on me until your belly was full and kept coming back for more when your hunger ravaged you again.

While lying on the hot desert sand in exile I watched you in your castle from a distance dreaming of the day I could come inside. When you shaded me with a small tree with no leaves I was so grateful for the generosity and compassion you showed me. Kept alive by this small tree and the drive to please you when you needed me, I grew bigger, though the pieces torn from me remained open wounds that impaired my growth and ability to move.

I clung to the shade from the small dead tree during the heat and exhaustion in this desert and reached out for it to keep me safe when the storms blew though, but to no avail. I was always left damaged. Unprepared to protect myself. Too weak to move.