When I just was a girl,
with pink ribbons and skinny, bony legs.
I was naïve, without a care in the world.

I'd dream of the someday,
of what the future would become.
I didn't know about the heartache, pain,
the struggles lain out before me.
I knew nothing of the mountains I (w)could climb.
Nor the mud I'd crawl(ed) through.

In my perfect world, I was in a bubble.
In a valley that would drop
my feet out from under me.
I would fall.
Trailing into the arching past.

I would pay every dollar, I couldn't afford,  
Just to go back to being that skinny, bony child, draped in her pink ribbons.
Lost in my naïve world of 'what's to become...'

Leaves turn gray
And fall away
The pressure is too great,
And you are far too late
I ask the universe
Or fate
To send some help
But it only hears a curse.

My light isn't light
He said
It's un-light
In the brightest possible way,
I long to gulp down
A beautiful soul
To replace the one stolen from me,
The one lost at sea
Instead, the un-light
Gulps me into its
Violent absence found
In leaves turning gray.

For one poem I shared here at HP
I got 55 views of which 5 were hearts -
hey, what happened to the 50?
OK, I don't expect all readers
to like the poems I post
so maybe HP -
to give readers a choice -
could introduce other buttons like:

DISLIKE
HATE
DESPISE
F _ _ _
YOU CALL THIS POETRY?
WENT TO SLEEP HALFWAY
DESPICABLE
DID NOT READ BUT I CLICKED LIKE
WORTHY OF BEING PLAGIARIZED


and so  then I might get a better view
of each of my poems, for example:

55 views

5 LIKE
20 F _ _ _
10 DESPICABLE
6 YOU CALL THIS POETRY?
10 DID NOT READ
BUT I CLICKED LIKE
4 WENT TO SLEEP HALFWAY
0 WORTHY OF BEING PLAGIARIZED

experience is precious
gives a perspective
Unique to you

the street is cold cracked and empty
wind whips through
only guess work lived here
all else packed up and left
long long ago