I will not become

Innocence stolen,

love tested.

the pain of living with

mistrust,

the horrors of slain purity.

Over and over and over again.

Even with him gone;

the smell, the taste,

the feeling and torture

lingers, like invisble

smoke.

Living day by day,

blank and dull,

slowly,

ever so slowly,

sinking into the tar pits of distress.

Marring flesh.

Then...

Realization.

He's gone.

Never to mark

another with his

venomous touch.

And

I will not bow down!

I will NEVER let another strike me down!

I will not let the

melancholic ebb of

a half-life rule over my mind

anymore.

I won't become

one of the

Walking Dead.