I remember the first time she used my shoulder
As a tissue.
The first time she showed me one of her bruises.
The first time her voice had cracked,
Like a stereo that hadn’t quite figured out
How to sputter out the song.
The first time she told me,
With a shaking voice,
“If I hadn’t…”

“If I hadn’t yelled…”
“If I hadn’t stayed out late…”
“If I hadn’t rolled my eyes...”

I remember the first time she had
Convinced herself that the purple mark
Was her fault,
Her own doing.
Like she had dipped a brush in a
Vat of paint
And covered herself with the sickly shade
That resembled a blueberry
That wasn’t ripe yet.

I remember the first time she inflicted the same pain
On another person.
The first time I witnessed her fist
Flying through the air,
And meeting its accidental destination,
In the dead center of a random girl's jaw.
She wanted to fight her way to happiness
By taking out her anger on a stranger,
So her bruises wouldn’t seem as bad.

I remember the first time she used alcohol
To conceal the scratches,
And concealer
To cover her black eye.
I remember crying with her,
When she showed me the hand print
On her throat
And croaked out,
“If I hadn’t been born…”

I remember the first time I had realized
She was broken.
She was lost.
Stumbling around in a world full of
Anger
And hate.
Her mind was home to almost as many scars
As her body,
And she was trapped in the lion's den,
Searching for an escape.

This is for her.
This is for the girls that fear the moment
The school bell rings,
Because they know what waits at home.
The one’s that deal with deadbeat dads
And cruel mothers
Who use alcohol to hydrate,
And punches to relieve stress.
The ones who dress
Each day,
To hide the marks from the one before.

This is for the girls that
Need love.
The girls that search for acceptance in the
Wrong kind of people.
The one’s who go through guy
After guy,
And still feel empty inside.
They go through bottle
After bottle
And the still have a gaping black hole in their stomach.
An endless pit that
Inhales every ounce of their hope,
Like a leech who had finally found
An innocent girl to latch onto.

This is for the girl that
Can’t take it anymore.