Just took an hour writing this.

Day 1 of NaPoWriMo, the prompt (and title): A Secret Shame.

Nothing good happens after 3am,
a nocturnal silence…
disturbed.

Some demons survive the conqueror’s blade –
ruby tears through the veil of truth.
An awakening of monstrous mendacity,
and the anniversary of a painful twilight.

10 years to the day of Napoleon’s futile triumph,
in sabotaging justice
as a grandson mourned.
A violent criminal evaded prosecution –
for he had no fixed abode,
yet now the innocent are criminalised –
for having no fixed abode.

Parallels ran deeper
than the cuts imbued upon my flesh,
and the sacral chains that bound me,
the mortal plane astounds me;
for it’s cruelties surpass Hades.

For years beyond count I compared myself to their unspeakable evil,
and yet existed in a conscious contrast.
I strove beyond society’s standards,
to reach a new awakening
within an omnipresent nightmare.

Yet this awakening was something different,
a reckoning, a test, a torture…
my compassion was the blade that slew me.
I recognised the signs of imbalance,
and sought to help.
My repentance for the sins of maternal ignorance.

But when a mother is crazy…
you suffer.

Everybody suffers.

Every.
Body.
Suffers.

A house of broken mirrors
brought 27 years bad luck,
reality distorted by
masculine malevolence.

One mother’s truth,
another’s lie.

Napoleon’s triumph tarnished by topsy-turvy tenements,
falsehoods fracturing
like a deck of Jokers
and a game of 52 card pickup.

But this was no laughing matter.

35 years later
and I’m snapped by symmetry.
A broken clock may still raise alarm,
even if it’s cuckoo.

Yet as lies seeped from a serpentine soliloquy –
more than 4 walls were broken.
Compassion turned to rage,
as I remembered their suffering.

Napoleon’s triumph undone,
a new ending writ
via an enigmatic quill
conjured from the depths of despair.

Many battles lost,
and yet the war was won.

My scars remain,
a secret shame…

A pacifist’s
hollow
victory.