Love, I Refuse

[Nagual Menagerie]

Character portrait of someone I love:

I am (name).
My love is tainted,
by my own tortured past.

I've known murder, death, and torture.
Death was preferred, 
but I'm not dead yet.

Growing up as a sex slave,
I was abused and hurt,
in ways so profound,
it would make angels cry.

Once, I had found an angel.
In her wings did I remember home.
Fear and hope arose,
and I knew not what to do.

I chose The Road Taken,
returning to the chains,
that have kept me enslaved,
my entire life.

The angel still visits me though,
every visit she makes,
she looks more bruised and beaten.

There was a time when she hadn't returned,
and so I wondered where she had been.
I took off my chains in search of her.

Eventually I found her,
on the brink of death herself,
I knelt down beside her and wept,
as I realized since I wouldn't leave hell,
she fought hell itself.

Both she and I took roads not taken that day.