She sits in the corner of the room, facing the door,
Her jeans soiled by the grime here before quietly undisturbed on the wood floor.

Her knees drawn up to her chest and white knuckles grasping her ankles,
She exists in the dismay of past circumstance,
Acting as if her posture will guard her from the twirling dust and phantom debris
Of years long since powdered with maimed promises and the smarting blemishes of casual indifference.

Years before, the man who called himself her father met her on the porch.
Even then, as a girl, she knew his words held no substance for her,
When he greeted her with a few detached pleasantries.
Then he passed through into the house, inquiring about the dinner
she had to coax from the lonely pantry and have ready for him.

Later, in the evening, as her languid eyes spilled her pain
He would wince past the knowledge of her complaints
saying, “It CAN'T be half as bad as you’re making it out to be!”

Mother, returning from third shift,
would startle the child
From the coveted ignorance of sleep,
Cuss her in the bathtub for being too slow,
And jostle her off to the school bus before the morning was too new.

Until one day the girl told a secret someone never meant her to speak,
And her mother jerked back, gasped,
then vigorously shook her head.
“No one would ever want to touch you like THAT.”   

These were her immaterial days,
When she learned not to talk about the visions of terror that captured her mind
For fear that her parents would stop and look at her again, their sudden reticence
Failing to disguise that twinge of annoyance in the corners of their eyes.


Dwarfed in spirit by her own indecision of just what to say and who to tell
The girl would spend years strangled to silence by false guilt.
Then, as a woman, her rage spewing, she would scream,
“I just want somebody to take me seriously!”