If you're reading this, it means they got me. 
I wasn't the sole survivor on the other side of a war. 
it wasn't some thing that they found and held captive. 
I wasn't that; 
 
but still I was defeated— 
not in the way you would expect, 
not in some fantastical display of bravado 
where I went out sword swinging wildly. 
 
It was a quiet defeat, 
where I realized there was no end. 
The end would only come after decades, 
and by then it would be much too late. 
 
The sparkles that once shone would dim. 
The hop in my stride would lull into a drag, 
the smile forced, the jokes hollow— 
the life gone. 
 
Maybe it isn't right to say they got me, 
because truthfully, they lost me. 
They stole my youth and my time— 
that I can not get back, 
 
but they do not have the me hardened by life.  
The me I've grown to be is still here.  
My defeat was in my forfeit,  
yet they did not win.