She carried her world in a trash-bag sack, A life measured out by the things she could grab, With the weight of the shadows pinned to her back, And a heart that was scarred by the things that were bad. ​She learned how to flinch before words were even said, To read every shadow that danced on the wall, To tuck all the terrors away in her bed, And catch her own heart whenever it’d fall. ​There were houses of strangers with cold, hollow halls, Where the price of a bed was a debt she would pay; She learned how to build up invisible walls To keep all the monsters and memories at bay. ​Her name was a file on a mahogany desk, A series of check marks and dates on a page, A story rewritten, a bit grotesque, With chapters she finished before she reached age. ​She endured the sharp lessons a child shouldn’t know— That hands can be heavy and hearts can be cold, But deep in the marrow, where nothing should grow, A flicker of lightning began to take hold. ​She is not the plastic, she is not the file, She is not the hand that was raised in the dark; She is the light that goes mile after mile, The survivor who turned every wound to a spark.