Dark Corridors

The fragile and innocent essence of a child is something I personally hold dear to my heart.
The following is a collection of prose in which I've written over the course of years across my  life's personal journey and experience.

Little Girl Lost

Butterflies and pony-tails
My barbie-dolls
And fairy-tales
Sleepovers and cookie-bakes
My tricycle
And roller-skates
Four-leaf clovers
Chocolate milk
Cartoon Sundays
Storybooks
Puppy dogs and
Fuzzy slippers
Cut my own bangs
With someones clippers
Balloons and candles
Clowns and cheer
None for me another year
My dress was torn
My socks didn't match
The falling stars
Too far to catch
Our house ablaze
Us four inside
Beneath my bed
I ran to hide
An orphanage for nights we stayed
The sleep of death
I've often prayed
No prom, No dress, No Sweet-Sixteen
My childhood stolen
Along with dreams.

 Our Playground

We huddled fearfully close together behind these thick shrubs just outside the living room 

window of a house we lived in for some time as children. 

She pleaded with me to please not go.

"Please don't leave me behind..."
she cried to me.

But I had to go away. Inside the living-room we could hear the television commercials jingling along, as the sound of our parents voices mumbled their plot to punish me upon my return.
She knew the degree of my fear. She huddled closer to me and cried helplessly.
The physical abuse we both knew had escalated to a point where I feared for my life at such a young age.  It was now desperation that filled me, instead of innocence and dreams.

The night was growing darker and cold, it was time for me to go and say my goodbye to her while doing so. "No please..." she begged and clutched my hand so tearfully.
She didn't understand, I was now running from two monsters; not just the one we both feared in the daylight; "her" and now "him". Her in the day and him in the night. "Ssshhhh..." I said.
"I'll come back for you someday. I just can't take it anymore." We hugged tight and between sobs she whispered, "Me too, me too."

I rose to go away from the hiding place that we huddled secretly in, and she looked at me intently, quietly. I walked away silently as the neighborhood dogs began to bark out in their own protest.

I looked back and saw the silhouette of her little frame, watching me from the edge of our yard, as I was halfway to the end of our block. My heart tugged at me painfully to leave her behind.

More dogs barked as I walked on. Then something, I sensed something and I turned around.
There she was so sweetly there just feet away from me. She ran to catch up to me, again her eyes pleading, "Me too...me too."

  She began to cry quietly as we both looked back at what was to me our dungeon, and then looking to each other again. Taking her little hand tightly in mine I yanked her closer to me and together we broke off into a run.

We ran through blocks and zig-zagged simultaneously as if we each had a planned and understood destination between us.
We arrived at our school playground and went to a wooden tee-pee structure. Our safe house for the night. I held her close, I had to protect not just me, but her too now; my little sister.
We cuddled like two baby kittens. "Me too" she whispered in my arms; "
he's been touching me too..."

I died inside. 

Shattered Reflections

The wind blows cold against my skin tonight.  My mind departs slowly, quietly through illusive doorways which are passages from present to past.  Sound now is more of an echoing wind.  A mysterious and yet mesmerizing hum of emptiness that seems to invoke a mental imagery of mist and fog. 
My heart now shudders.  Weeping willow trees beguile me in what becomes an emotional trance-like into their cove.  Seducing the deeper recesses of my emotions now rendered pliant.  I lightly move across the frosted grass to a moss-covered knoll at the edge of the pond; for rest and reflection.

The resplendence of the moonlight touches down softly to kiss the water, not disturbing its stillness. Time, like the night is standing still here.  Lost in a timeless maze of cold memories, the faint sound of a whimpering child creeps both eerily and pathetically through the dark silence here.
 

As teardrops form slowly at the corners of my child's eyes, I see the wounding reflection of this child and the frightening scene displayed on the surface of the water; haunting my soul.
Huddled helplessly naked in a corner, she weeps.  Our eyes manage to connect, somehow managing to find myself transcended into the vivid reflection of this wounded child. 
Her eyes pleading silently with mine "Help me"...
My own eyes simultaneously pleading back the same "Help me"...

As this scene unfolds again in my mind, my chest tightens and my heartbeat quickens.  

I can no longer feel the biting sting of the cold air against my skin.  Our eyes still transfixed with each other’s eyes, my hand slowly reaches to clutch a rock beside me; clutching in an inner feeling of desperation. 
 

Suddenly, her eyes dart away to a towering shadow of a person standing in a doorway. 
We both tremble.  Fear and helplessness fill her eyes, as tears roll down in streams, cascading her bruised and battered little face.  I tighten my grip on the rock beside me as the surges of both anger and defense stand to envelop me.  Rescue me.  The shadow takes a step toward this child...again.
 

My other hand reaches out, as if to reach into this reflection on the water; that I may pull this child out of this hellish scene; to spare her this violation...again.
Wrapping her arms tightly around her folded up knees, the approaching shadow seems to now sense my presence too here; pausing for a moment as if to look at me, or for me.
"Please don't hurt me anymore!"  I murmur pleadingly to the atrocious reflection as this child s whimpering sound spills across the night. 

The towering shadow again refusing my plea, the child now screams; once again shattering my heart.  Angrily I shatter the reflection by hurling the rock vehemently into the still water, as tears cloud my eyes and anguish fills me.
 

As the ripple-splay across the ponds surface, the dawn makes its approach...again.

This particular writing was submitted and then featured behind glass at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine at New York City 2003.
(c) 2003-2013 Mina-Leann Sowell