The light is on again as she passes
Endless sleepless hours in
A quiet house.

It was so simple, once: life would
Take you somewhere useful if
You just held on and kept facing
Forward. Now it is simple in
A different way: it goes nowhere.

So many words to absorb through
Eyes and ears; so many adventures
Experienced for her. From those
Disparate threads she weaves a tapestry
Of a world she wishes was real

*
She was going to do so much, they said:
Reshape the world in her image,
In their image of her, the girl
Who was never real who grew into
The woman who is still a girl.

That relaxed, joyful smile, that
Confidence I saw so fleetingly,
Disappeared like a departing tide,
To be replaced with acres of emptiness,
Of lonely, sodden sands, of
Ceaseless summer desolation.

As the years pass, we change, either
With the world, or by remaining the same.

The world that cradled her became
Hostile; the city she loved
Turned against her, her glistening eyes
Shifting from beautiful buildings to
The dark shadows they cast.

She ran, and found herself
Somewhere she once knew that is
Not as she left it. She runs still,
Hoping to find the girl she lost,
The girl everyone else remembers;
The girl who was never there to lose.

05/04/2015

Posted on 05/20/2015
Copyright © 2024 Richard Vince