She Tried To Destroy Me, But...
by Barbara Lynn Terry

She grabbed me from behind
as I stepped inside the door
she held my arms tightly
as her friend started to open
the shirt I was wearing.
Mother wanted to see if
I was wearing one of her slips
I squirmed and I wiggled to
escape her tightly held grasp
until her friend stopped.
Mother let go of my arms
and I ran to the other side
of the room, and looked at her
with such a shocked look on my face
because I could not believe
she would do that to me.
Then she threatened that if
she ever caught me wearing her
clothes, she would make sure
I couldn't sit for a month of Sundays.
Shortly after that, she had me sent
to a state institution, where after two
months of being there, she signed
away her parental, something I
did not know until I was eighteen.
She tried to destroy my female soul
but I hung on for dear life, because if
she ever succeeded, I would be dead,
for if I could not live at home
as my mother's daughter, there would
be no reason for to live at all.
I am on my way to being physically
the girl I should have been born as
and nothing can destroy me now,
because it has been tried by experts
of a degree only the abused can know.

Barbara Lynn Terry

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/she-tried-to-destroy-me-but/