Please don’t hurt me

Can’t you see

How tender sore and raw I am inside

This body that I have carried with the soul it contains

Has never really felt free or at peace

And so many things that happened to me

Were like knifes that cut so deep into soft flesh

Cast by unfeeling knife throwers

Oblivious to the pain

And now

When the life force that for so long I felt I had to swallow

Or reject

Or feel ashamed for carrying

Rises up

And I feel this electricity

It feels again as if my very flesh is being seered

By electric fire

Containing anger fear

Frustration and desire

And as I realise how uncertain life and loving was for me

The charge is almost overwhelming

And fear of being hurt again

Is so great

But can I really ask of life

That at times it won’t continue

To cause such pain

As I hover on the brink

Of living and loving fully again

And open myself

To fully experience its flame