Choosing Life

Energy holding back energy,

consuming itself --
reaction sparked long ago
by an adult's mad compulsion
to overwrite a child;
tender buds of truth
cast rudely underfoot
before they could blossom,
spontaneity shamed,
innocence mocked --
theft whose underlying script,
tenacious and annihilating,
continued to plunder the years:

"You, as you are, have no right to be."

But I answer now
(for it is never too late):
I am.