That little girl on the steps
She's waiting for me
With brown whispy hair
And big blues eyes holding dried tears;
Sad because she's leaving,
Happy because she's getting away.
Hour after hour
She sits and stares out at the meadow -
Elbows resting on her knees
Chin cradled in her hands -
Watching for the mad rush of birds
Half-expecting another broken promise.
Fighting my way through the reeds and brush
Barefoot cuts, sweating drops of blood.
Where am I going? Is it worth this pain?
I hear a sound, a voice so faint
A child's, though strangely familiar.
She's calling my name.
Finding it odd that anyone knows who I am,
And certainly not a child,
Drawn to the voice
By an ache from deep within
My heart feels like it's been turned inside-out
And I don't know why.
Faster, faster, I run headlong;
"I'm coming, I'm coming, as fast as I can."
Her voice is almost urgent.
What could be so important, so bad, so awful
For her to beg me to take her away?
I see the house, it's empty. No wonder.
The child is three, she's all alone
She cries out her own name
To be sure she exists.
She lifts her teary eyes and looks to the meadow;
The birds fly off in a million directions.
A familiar face emerges from the reeds.
With each step her face looks more and more
Like someone I know, but I can't remember.
Then we're face to face, eye to eye.
She calls out my name
And starts to cry,
And I realize this little girl is me.
She reaches out for me
With her little hands covered with tears.
I run to her, scoop her up in my arms
And I hold her tight.
She hugs me
As if she's never been held.
She believes me when I tell her I love her,
She's a good little girl and it wasn't her fault.
I promise to take her away to a safe place
And protect her from all the bad people.
She insists on a "cross-my-heart-and-hope-to-die" promise.
I do, and she believes me.
As I hold the child within
My tears cannot be held back.
I think of the childhood stolen from me
I think of the hugs I needed but never received.
Pieces of pain from deep within surface.
I grieve for what is lost; I cry from the inside out.
I carry the child to my magic carpet.
She tells me she loves me and squeezes me tight.
"No one's ever going to hurt you again;
I'm going to take good care of you."
She says she's going to take good care of me too.
I believe her.
Up high we go on our magic carpet
Over all the angry people
Leaving them all behind.
As long as we stick together
They can't harm us anymore.
They will not.
Our magic carpet came to rest
On top of a pile of Autumn leaves outside my home.
I rolled off the carpet, grabbed an armful of leaves
And let them shower my little girl.
She giggled, put leaves down the back of my shirt
And said she was making a scarecrow to keep the bad birds away.
For a long time, we played in the leaves.
Then I looked around and realized I was by myself.
Where had she gone?
I went inside, took a wonderful bubblebath,
Brought warm milk and cookies to bed
And fell asleep with my pink and white stuffed bunny.
That little child is safe now.
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