The Prey

“She can kiss my fucking ass.” I hear him yell across the room.

He’s not the kind of man to apologize. He’s never going to.

Instead, the coward that he is, he’ll use my mother as a shield.

His ignorance, his heaviest sword, is the weapon that he’ll wield.


He’ll cut me to the bone for things far beyond my control.

“No kid of mine’s gonna be a dyke.” The words, they burn my soul.

All I wanted was someone who cared. Someone who was kind.

A man who’d treat us with respect, and believe that love is blind.


Instead, this man stood on my cape. He wanted to break me down inside.

He doesn’t know that his words don’t affect me now. He couldn’t change me if he tried.

And now I know all of his secrets. The deepest darkest ones.

I promised I would keep them, and my word has been my bond.


But he has crossed the point of no return, and my voice begins to shake.

A fire burns within it. I’ll do whatever it takes,

To protect those who can’t protect themselves. To take back the childhood that he stole,

It’s been sitting on a shelf for years collecting dust and growing old.


I refuse to let him do the same to the little ones left behind.

I won’t let him break their spirit the way he tried to destroy mine.

The burdens I was forced to bare, because of decisions that he made

Are the reasons why I won’t give up on taking his power away.


I’m no longer afraid of him. He can’t hurt me the way he did before.

The little girl who cried for twenty years doesn’t exist anymore.

Patiently I wait, like a predator prepared to strike.

This man doesn’t know he’s become my prey or how hard I will fight,


To change the outcome of their lives. To rescue them from the hell where I was raised.

I won't give up. I won't give in  until each and every one of them is safe.

Only over my dead body will he hurt someone again.

He won the battle, that is true, but this war he’ll never win.