The darkest of places I've survived are etched into the very fabric of my being, scars that run deep and memories that haunt me in the dead of night. Many times, I should have died, the odds stacked against me in a cruel and unforgiving world. The most evil of people raised me, if you can call it that - they tore me down, tried to kill my spirit, and shattered me to my core.

All my life, I've been treated by people in a way that chips away at my soul, leaving me feeling broken and battered. Sometimes, the mistreatment is immediate, while other times it creeps in slowly, like a poison spreading through my veins. But no matter how I am treated, I refuse to change who I am at my core. I stand firm in my beliefs, in my essence, refusing to let the darkness of others consume me.

I have learned to not bend to the will of those who seek to break me, but instead to stand tall in the face of adversity. I will not mold myself into someone I am not, nor will I allow grudges to fester inside me like a cancer. I am different from the humans of this world, a being who is merely existing in a place that does not feel like home.

I may be stuck in this world, but I am not of it. I am a light in the darkness, a beacon of hope in a sea of cruelty. And even though I have survived the darkest of places and the most evil of people, I refuse to let them define me
© J.F Chapman-Butz