Dear xaas:

Unique poem, unlike anything I read before. You wrote:

“I do not want to be used or labeled
to be accused of being unable”

As I respond to your threads here, I will not use you. I will not label you. I will not accuse you of being unable.

The term you came up with here: “toy from hell” makes me think of those terrible beatings and violence at at what should have been a safe home (your other thread). A toy stands for your childhood and indeed your childhood was hell.

Being beaten like you were, a victim to a father stronger than you, being weak for being the child that you were…I can understand why you wouldn’t want to be accused of being unable, of being weak.

A child severely abused learns to hate weakness.

“The abyss below is lawless”- that home-from-hell was lawless. What happened to you was lawless.

There is much in the poem I don’t understand. But I would like to. The ending:

“Knowing oneself is to be pardoned…
Mastering it is the bargain.”

I would very much like to understand these two lines…?

anita