Wholly oblivious to the cherished hopes
that trembled in you like hobbled thoroughbreds,
he brought you to that purgatorial place
and left you at the mercy of the virtuous.
The gray shadow of their expectations
hung over you like grinning Procrustes
and, like his victims, you contorted yourself,
trying to fit in, to acquiesce in your fate.
Later, when the inevitable came to pass,
they wondered how you could throw it all away,
just as though your life had belonged to you.