They took fifteen
soft edged stones,
piled them into the sky
- fifteen storeys
to build her wall.

But they knew the sixteenth
would fissure under the pressure
- so they toiled
in the face of tragedy
to build stronger defences,
hold her down.

Still, she fell,
months short of the
seventeenth completion,
the love of her parents
not withstanding the
self-loathing that cracked
her from the inside.

Her suicide note
never told them why;
and they knew that
fifteen apologies
could never undo
the sixteenth sin.

12/29/2003

Posted on 12/29/2003
Copyright © 2025 Karen Michelle