Innocence

by Amelia Simpson
(England)

Every night she hears him
Every night she cries
The doorway to her childhood
Is locked from the inside

She stays in her bleak bedroom
A chair behind the door
She knows that it won't stop him
She knows what is in store

He comes into her bedroom
'won't you come and play?'
She wants to run and hide
But he's the adult; she must obey

She tries to tell her sister
The words just won't come out
She'll never tell the secret
She lives her life in doubt

She hears his voice inside her head
She sees him in her dreams
The hopeless life she's come to know
Is tearing at the seems

The story's that he read to her
Were once a place to hide
Now she keeps them by her bedside
To remind her of his lies

Even though she's older now
She still feels full of pain
She revisits that terrible place
again and again and again

She wants to end the suffering
She's feeling every day
She swears one day she'll find that man
And then she'll make him pay.