What of I?
By Stellar84

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This poem belongs to me, Emily.  All rights reserved.  Please,
no duplicating, copying, or distribution without my consent.
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     In my house, I am a slave 
     For everything I must behave. 
     I have to be a perfect girl; 
     Being my parents wondrous pearl. 
     Displayed abroad for all to see, 
     Those don’t know what’s inside of me. 
     My own feelings on this affair...
     But must they really sit and stare? 

     I only wish I could escape 
     This dreadful life, but far too late. 
     For I’m beyond those iron chains 
     But bonded here, so much in pain. 
     I live in just, eternal fear 
     My efforts just return a sneer 
     And no comfort is ever sent 
     And I can hardly be content. 

     I don’t have anywhere to turn, 
     Nor no place to hide from the burn. 
     So where do I go this cold day? 
     If I leave, I’ll be led astray 
     From the path I currently take. 
     It seems to me so much at stake 
     That I may hold a different life 
     But one still filled with lots of strife 

     My life is constricted, so small. 
     People talk to me naught at all. 
     An outcast, people have made me; 
     And yet there are things I can foresee. 
     Myself without a future thus, 
     Of all the things I think I must...
     Change this lifestyle I’ve survived 
     And only now have realized. 

     The time has come for one to change, 
     To shed the skin that made me strange, 
     To stand up for what is my own, 
     Yet, even now I fight alone. 
     I fight against my own true fear, 
     And through these things I can not steer. 
     I end up right where I begun, 
     And nothing, nothing can be done. 

     So what of I, this lone true girl? 
     Is she nothing more than the pearl 
     Her parents always show, display 
     And yet do try to throw away? 
     And what of I, they all see this 
     A perfect child, who sees bliss. 
     In truth she cries those stormy nights 
     "But What of I?" to glowing lights.