Silenced

My voice is weak

Silenced by the strong

While I have a soul longing

to seek a place of shelter

Somewhere I can belong

Bathe these wounds

in Gilead’s balm

Receive oil of joy

to slip away from harm

Pain penetrates each day

Its probing fingers linger

like a stubborn stain

Leaving me weaker than before

Coated in a covering of shame

Living on the margins

Broken by its borders

A limp-ragged doll, I blink

wary eyes at society

and slink away to hide

Because I’m washed up

by its tide, become detritus

on the shore, breathless

in my distress, dis-ease

But the Healer hears and sees

Cradles His hurting child

Gathers her fragments, lost soul

Breathes new life, new hope

to restore and make her whole