Hidden People

Hidden People
When you look at me what do you see?
Do you see the HIDDEN PEOPLE inside of me?
They can see you, but you can’t see them.
They live in my mind where they’ve always been.
Some doctors call it Mental Illness.
But it’s not you see.
It’s survival because they came to save me.
They saved me from him because I was too small
to let my mind endure the pain of it all.
I broke into pieces and out of that came
the people who keep me alive Night and Day.
Each one has a purpose for being in me.
And Oh! So much pain they had to see.
He beat them, and raped them, and tortured them, too.
But they could endure much more than he knew.
Each one of them holds a memory inside of them, still,
and at nighttime it gets them.
It seems so real.
Sometimes I hear them as they cry and scream.
One likes to cut to watch the blood stream.
How much more are they expected to take
before it’s they who are forced to break?
Integration is what I’m told they need.
But how can we become one when I still need
separate parts of me?
Without them…
How will I ever survive?
The lesser of two evils…
To Live or to Die?