Strength

She sat by the window. The hollow creases of her face mapping her permanent sorrow. It was a sunny day, in the literal sense. Gloom is everlasting to the one with a life of pain.

She was a lost beauty. Her eyes echoed the stolen art that once radiated from her skin. Hardship is a hard ship to sail on, especially after forty years of despair.

Negative diction always portrays pain accurately. For her, no words can be a mirror to the torture her soul underwent. It was her history, not to be recorded nor relayed. It was her history, witnessed only by God.

They told her she was weak, that her suffering was her choice, and that she could break free at any moment. They understood her inside as defined by their perception of her outside. If she were a book, they judged her by the cover. They knew nothing. If they were slapped in the face with her reality, they would combust. Which is why she hid it. Her oppression was more than enough to handle.