Battalion

To write “Love” on my arms
Is a self-declaration against
Everything I have suffered in the past.

Mutilation
Starvation
Depression
Sexation.

Do those four letters
Written in
Ink
Shout defiance
To the skies?

Love as protection?

A shield against the swarming tides
Of evil that dare to pry
Innocent eyes?

A solid stone through the raging
Storms.

Love, they say, protects all.

Love, the forbidden, whispered
In the dark.

Love, can it save someone like me?

Who cries silent tears,
Clawing through an invisible veil
Searching for salvation,
For an escape,

From the monster
within.

The monster with gnarled,
Scaly claws.
That uncurl from the hallowed
Caves of skin and bone
Beneath my fingernails.

They grow
Four inches
Five,
Then, six.
Until their steel coats
Glisten in the light.

Light?
When they are messengers of darkness?

How they tear and dig,
Burrow their cruel blades into
The plains of my skin,
Dragging their ruthless daggers
Through
The fields of my heart.

They gnaw away to
Skin
And
Bone.
A mangled corpse
Walking on iron legs.
They wash their ands
In throws of
Blood.

In the darkness they rule
Fearless
And
Strong.
But when light dare peak through
Like ancient scouts scoring the
Forests for hidden archers
Before a great battle.
Ignoring life’s predestined heeds.

Love’s battalion charges,
Ripping the veil,
Bringing the
sun to
These frozen fingers.

Slowly, carefully,
They crawl
Inch by inch
To rescue
A tattered shield of
Calloused eyes.

Can love save
Those innocent eyes
Held prisoner by
Hell’s Battle
Inside the mental prison
Of a
Soulless Devil Woman.

Can love save someone like me?