For Those Who Care

I am a woman
I matter because I am
I am not your daughter
I hurt because I can

They said to fight fire with fire
So that's what I did
I cut out my heart
So the pain could not spread

I am wounded by memories that once brought me bliss
Like daggers in my back, l, Caesar, you, Brutus
They pin me to a past that I can no longer see
So that I'm always looking back, but it's just out of reach
And I know I should be trying to extricate the blades
But the pain is somehow bracing, a reminder of a price unpaid
I am an empire on the brink of dissolution, by civil war now split
You are the force that tore me asunder, and the thread by which I'm feebly knit