Empty Runs Deep Poem by Ashley Renee Thompson

My reality used to say:
'I know how to fix you,
It's the only way....'
But obeying was the worst to do.

Kept saying not to feel,
Or at least not to admit
All the pain inside was real
I'm only suppose to submit.

How naive was I,
To blindly follow those hollow words?
A constantly repeated lie...
Now it all seems so absurd.

So many memories have passed,
Me; frozen in faded pages of time
A distorted image in blurred contrast
Obedience my only crime.

The final lesson you bestowed,
As your rage left it's bruises
But deeper wounds concealed safe below
Full of disappointment & confusion.

It's meaning shouted loud and clear,
So, there's some good in all your bad:
Stop living my life as if I'm not here
My strongest lesson from the weakest man.

Yours; the deepest cuts ever endured,
Tho you won't know the scars you caused
Since there's no reasoning with a mind so disturbed
Still arguing your views broken and flawed.

I'll heed your lesson, written in blood
Held tightly in my mind....
Valued lessons: This one sits high above
But, You, Yourself I'll leave behind.

My hatred rivaled by my own respect,
Such a strange place to be...
I'm eternally grateful, yet filled with regret
Such a lesson born to pure misery.


-Conflicted-