Laughing and grinning ear to ear,
The girl danced across the grass,


In the dark the girl sighed,
Closing her eyes and imagining


A tension pressing on her chest
She was a bird.


Like a hug that’s just a bit too tight.
Racing around barefoot


Soft thuds sounded on the wood ceiling above her,
She tried to fly higher,
Making her way to the top of the hill.


A drum beat to rival her heart’s.
When she reached the summit,


Her eyes strained in the murky blackness,
She stopped,


The darkness that craved light
Staring at the dusty blue sky


That craved devouring her life.
In awe of its humbling power and infiniteness.


She twisted around, feeling the silky sheets
The girl stood on the hilltop,


Press closer to her lithe body,
The wild wind whipping her hair into a fury.


As if trying to suffocate her.
A screen door shut,
Startling her from her entrancement,


Her eyes squeezed shut,
And she spun in its direction.


Fear paving a salty trail down her rounded cheek.
The door had a small house attached to it,


From outside there came no more sounds;
Simple in appearance
But of great worth to her,


An oppressive, distant silence settled on her ears.
For this house was a home.


The tension that was once a comforting hug
Looking down from her perch,


Now threatened to crush her.
The girl saw her mother’s dark form
Beginning to mount the hill.


The girl started twisting around,
She carried an object in her hand


Writhing as if possessed by the demon she had just escaped,
And misery in her heart,


The demon that was in her blood.
But the girl’s eyes could only grasp the former.


Forcing up her arms,
Misery was the girl’s sister,


She pummeled on the roof
Whom the woman saw reflected in the daughter’s eyes


With all the energy she still retained.
Without relief every day.


Realizing its futileness,
There was an object in her hand,


She quieted her bleeding fists’ pounding.
Which the girl assumed was for her 14th birthday.


No more tears broke free
Smiling, she danced with the wild wind


Of their bright blue cages,
Until her mother finally reached the top.


But her body shook with irrepressible sobs.
As the girl faced her mother eagerly,


Then, ripping through the layers of earth around her,
The smile froze on her dainty cheeks
As she beheld her gift.


A voice traced its way into her tired ears.
“A shovel, Mama?”


If you could have asked her what it said,
Her mother offered no words to explain,


She wouldn’t have been able to say.
And only her cold eyes foretold the story’s ending.


They weren’t the kind of words that could be
“Mama?”


Printed and exposed on paper
In a single, ghastly motion,


Or tasted on a tentative tongue
Her mother swung the shovel


Before burying themselves
Into her daughter’s head.


In an innocent head.
The girl crumpled to the ground immediately,


But she froze.
And the woman began to dig.


A calm settled over her body,
She dug until she reached a small wooden coffin,


And a small sigh emerged from her parched lips
Which must have been buried years ago.


Like the cry of a newborn bird.
Removing the lid, which was engraved with Misery,


Eyelids like feathers fluttered closed,
She coughed at the rotten, musty smell


And her pulsing heartbeat slowed to at turtle’s pace.
And shoveled out the vestiges.


A smile painted its way across her mouth
Lifting her daughter from the ground,


Which used to sing so sweetly.
She laid her inside the coffin,


The last beating of her heart sounded,
Not noticing the heated trail of breath emerging from the girl’s mouth,


Ending in tandem
Or the oh-so-small rise-and-fall of her chest.


With the rise and fall of her chest,
The woman replaced the lid and climbed from the hole,


And the silence ensuing stretched eternally on.
And began tossing in dirt to hide


The thin light she contained arose from her quiet chest,
The horrid sin she had committed.


Leaving her body and breaking free of the coffin,
No tears cleansed the dirt from her features,


Gathering speed as it passed through the layers of earth
No sadness broke her conscience.


To dance under the sky for one last time.
The woman finished burying her breathing daughter,


Her light sprang from the ground,
And stood up,


Less than a foot from where her mother stood,
Shovel in hand.


Shovel in hand.