I lived in this man-made mess

Entirely not of my own making

Men dined on my humility

Ate from my insecurity

Time was my enemy

My old name taunted me

Haunted and raped me

My dead child remained

Forever in my broken heart

A chain around my neck

I became forgotten

A gossamer ghost

Trembling from existence

Frightened by corporality

Wishing to be absent

To be swallowed up

An invisible nothingness

But also to be wanted

By my distant beloved

Whose stubborn heart

Did eventually turn

Although too late to save my soul

The knife had been sunk

Into my wrongdoer's heart

With that liberating blow

My fate had been sealed

Incarcerated to face

My execution, my escape.