I didn’t recognize you. I didn’t want to know,
The secrets and the truths held,
Deep within your eyes…and although,
I see you near to me. I’m afraid to glance your way.
For how can one save the lost;
Trapped in a time far away?
I can not speak of the horror; Only of the screams.
I hear them slip through your lips,
And besiege me in my dreams.
I’m sorry I left you there; In that place, all alone…
Where the clock’s forever stuck,
At quarter-past “never-known”.
–I stand atop a dark stairway. I see you below,
And as your eyes look my way,
I spy a looming shadow;
And as the shadow passes o’er, our eyes, they fin’lly meet.
I know I can not save you,
So once again I retreat.–
I didn’t recognize, ’cause I didn’t want to know,
That the girl in the mirror,
Had the same bleak eyes which show…
The anguish of a child betrayed. A child left behind…
Deserted and forsaken,
In the corners of my mind.
K. Aldaya, 4/27/18
Picture: Vintage image used in the book “Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children” by Ransom Riggs; https://www.pinterest.com/pin/330522060122327068/