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How Does A Survivor Become One?

Retta Lewis

For a time,
She didn’t recognize the sound of her own voice,
And there were a thousand of them—
All wanting inside her head.

So much damage done,
So many silent moments,
When someone should have been talking,
And she was swallowing the world,
Until even she began to doubt.

How does a survivor become one?
How does a survivor not?

There was darkness everywhere,
And so many moving parts;
So many ways to succumb to it
Without ever knowing why.

A decade or two of reflection
Was the start of her journey out,
But between the dawn and that,
She watched the darkness circle.
She could see the danger in it,
And then the danger came.

It’s all just numbers now,
And that was a different time—
She was a different girl.
She didn’t know what she needed then.
She didn’t know until the end.

A falling in and out of place
With only the darkness to catch her
Was a challenge in any season.
She saw its many faces,
And remembers all of them.

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