ManicWorld Magazine

The river flowing past my home is no longer blue:
it is a shade of red.
Perhaps, I have washed my sins
on its banks too many times.
It has soaked up my tears
made me clearer
while it grew muddier
heavier with what I tried to drown so often.
What sediments now burden the riverbed
my mind can’t comprehend,
for that place inside of my body
feels completely obliterated.
I want to scream and let the world know
I am not the problem;
yet I am stuck cleaning up messes
still scrubbing away the stains
of other people’s cruelties
that defiled my innocence,
tainted my sacred space,
and branded them as my burden to carry till death.