Am I A Monster?…

When love is a bottle of bourbon and fear,
Where you’re woken at midnight to get out of here. 
Just down to the road and right back to the start,
A hundred false exits to fracture the heart. 

When love is the face of a mother who stays,
Refusing to rescue through violent days. 
When hours at the minder are terror and pain,
And lies tell you this is how families remain. 

When love looks like traps that you never escape,
With danger and violence in every shape. 
From everything shown to me, early and raw,
My mind learned that love was a weapon and flaw. 

So it stripped love completely right out of my map,
Refusing a part in the cycle or trap. 
I never possessed it, nor wanted it here,
With no use for warmth and no room for a tear. 

They call me a monster for ignoring the door,
For showing no softness, no need to explore. 
I am not broken,just fashioned like this,
What you’ve never had, you never miss. 

The ability to love others was never installed,
I walked through the world unbothered, uncalled. 
It wasn’t a choice, and it wasn’t a wall,
The feelings for others were never grown at all. 

Then out of the silence, a little hand curled,
An unconditional light in a terrifying world. 
It bypassed the blank and the map in my mind,
A mother’s pure love that was gentle and kind. 

So I am no monster, made of iron or stone,
I now hold a mother’s love that I’d never been shown. 
The only love needed, when all’s said and done,
Is the fierce, steady truth that I hold for my son.