This free verse piece was written around the same time as the bulk of the poems that make up my debut book, The Year that Stole the Light Away. I stumbled onto it this morning, and after seeing it with fresh eyes, I thought it would be nice to give it a home. A piece about the child that lives in us all: I hope you enjoy it.
The Child:
She remembers me from years ago,
but I can’t say the same.
She says her mind is troubled.
She tells me her mother ran off
with her stepfather.
They’re traveling the country in an RV.
She tells me she deserved more
when her father died.
Now that bastard gets it all!
She leaps from her chair
and loudly re-enacts an argument,
jabbing her finger into a phantom chest.
Her eyes fill with tears,
and at sixty years old, a lost child
cries out for her mother.
-Brandon White
Brandon White 