Mirrored

I didn't know endings are just
beginnings looked at in a mirror.

It started one quiet afternoon...
My love,
His words.
My trust,
His hands.
And my life
Upside down,
Change everywhere,
Free falling
Like rain.

I should have watched the weather report,
But at age 5,
I didn't understand terms like
Supercell or
Squall line
So no meteorologist could have
Prepared me for the
Violent storms ahead.
I was on my own.

Except for him,
He offered me an umbrella for the
Downpours
And a basement room
In which to wait out the tornadoes.
If only I had known...
There was no help, no shelter to be had there,
For what started out
Appearing to be
The eye of the storm
Quickly became a massive cyclone

With lightning scorching
Any show of strength I made
And cloudbursts drowning
Any hope I had.

The tempests raged overhead,
But in the oppressive noise
Of that small room,
More destruction was caused
Than by all the storms outside
A hundredfold over.

It all ended one quiet afternoon
Three years later
With a forced goodbye
As my family moved away.
My life
No longer my own
But to be lived
With his ghost
Haunting me from the shadows,
Reminding me of
My innocence,
His bed.
My virginity,
His game.

But in that mirror
Where once he started
And I disappeared,
Now his demise
Became
My new beginning,
My chance to finally escape
The fear of storms
He instilled in me,

Because even the worst cyclone
Eventually loses its power.