Victory

By Sarah Watson

I look in your face and see the pain,
The freedom, the happiness you feel you won't gain.
You lost everything when you hid yourself,
Your talents, your passions, tossed on a shelf.

You have no self worth, and I don't know why,
You sit around and frown and sigh.
You wish you could go back to years before,
When you appreciated and liked yourself so much more.

I look at your face and see tears streaming down.
I see your look and I know that frown.
You long to wipe those tears away.
But, crying helps to pass the day.

I turn around and you're not there.
You are out of my sight, I can no longer stare.
The person I see, that person who's crying,
Is MY face in the mirror, sad and sighing.

I have to live with a stutter each day.
I'm constantly planning just what I'll say.
My true potential can never shine through.
I'm afraid of what people will say or do.

What if I stutter, what if I'm found out?
I spend the day planning a new route.
Will I substitute, avoid, pretend I don't know?
Or just stop speaking, is that the way I'll go?

At the end of the day, "What all have I done?"
I feel my stuttering has once again won.
And then I say, "I'm tired of this."
I long for the things in life that I miss.

I know it's time to start a new me,
And break these chains, set me free!
I'm tired of living a life of fear,
And feeling my eyes cry tear after tear.

Away from that mirror I quickly walk,
I still stutter and stammer, and block when I talk.
But, now I wipe those tears away.
I begin a confident, fear free day.