Couldn't Leave, Until I Did

I Couldn't Leave, Until I Did

I couldn't leave, I didn't know how,
I hide my bruises, hid my face,
Too shattered to be seen somehow,
Too broken to find a safer place.

I cried so loud just to be heard,
Deaf to the echo of my own pain,
My tongue was sharp, my thoughts were blurred,
I left a fire where love should of been

It wasn't sadness, it was dread,
Rejection, wanting what would never stay,
A house where love had starved and bled,
Where nothing gentle dared to stay.

I lost chances, time and tears,
I wounded hearts I was meant to hold,
Too grieving and too lost in fears,
In a story too shattered to be told.

Then through the dark, God spoke my name, shelly!
He whispered *shelly, it's not too late,
Getup!, open your eyes, be brave,
I’m giving you one more chance at fate.

That night I rose up from that floor,
That night I chose myself, I chose to see,
I turned my back and closed that door,
And left that darkness watching me.

I left my old life in the dust,
I left the ones who watched me fall,
I shed the woman I had lost,
And buried that old self all of her

Each day I thank Him for that night,
He lifted me from sin and fire,
He turned my shadows into light,
And breathed new life into my lost soul

Don't say your hell was worse than mine,
I never measure pain to pain,
I only know this soul of mine
Survived what should have left me dead.

And now I face another war,
They whisper cancer, stage four,
But hear me when I say this!

Cancer will not define me,
Just as violence couldn't.
That trauma never got to name me,
And this disease will not either

I was the woman too sad, too lost to be,
Now I'm the woman who stood up and took my life back
And finally, I am free to take my life back once again!!