You didn't even recognize
Your own ******* daughter.

After
Seven years of absence.
Seven years of change.
Seven years of silence.
Seven years of growing up without you.

And you write a ******* email
To reiterate how good life is
Now that you've abandoned your family
To pursue the life you felt
We kept you from?
Never asking how your daughter is.
Never asking if the child she held in her arms
Was your grandbaby, your ******* flesh and blood.
Never asking a single question
That would focus any shred of attention
On anyone but you.

What. The. Hell?

Sometimes the universe is gracious
And answers our theoretical questions.
Mine had been "What would you say to me?
What would you think of the woman I've become?"

Now I know the answer because
Your dead soulless eyes and selfish letter
Say everything for you:

"Frankly, I don't give a ****."

Well, guess what,
Woman-I-will-no-longer-call-Mom,

I don't give a **** about you either.
You're dead to me--just a ghost.
And we all know the truth about ghosts:
They aren't real.

From mothers arms and fathers feet
To shaking hands and ***** streets.

From sweet smiles and tender kisses
To a lost little child no one misses.

From overalls and teddy bears
To daytime tears and nighttime scares.

From bubble bathes and lullabies
To scarred up skin and lifeless eyes.

From parks filled with plastic slides
To a box with nails stuck in its sides.

-ARI

A calf without milk
Ripped from the womb
Mother's hair like silk
Lay stiff in the tomb

And father's embrace
To go up in flames
Our house to misplace
In a lion's main

My siblings so dear
Strung far apart
Lost and in fear
Rip out my heart

The system tells not
Of where we should go
It makes me burn hot
Through rain and in snow

Lost were the lambs
Without mother's kind face
Lost were us lambs
Without father's sturdy place

Scattered are we
My siblings and me
No place to go
Nothing to be

He's been an orphan since he was sixteen
That's when his parents kicked him out because he was so mean .
He's been living on the steps of every backdoor
What he can't get begging he will steal for

Once he was his mother's pride and joy
That was before he started drugs and there was no wonder anymore .
His skin turned hard and his heart harder still
His eyes became vacant lots lacking any will

He was living for a shot in the dark
Instead someone shot him down by the park
He died with a silly grin on his face
Don't worry there's someone who will take his place

Just another American dream disgraced
Another person slips off the face
He was dead before he hit the ground
His life ended with out a sound

And every day we say I don't care
He wasn't going to make it anywhere
All he was good at was getting high
Now he's gone and no one's asking why

His skin was as hard as a memory
He kept then in a bottle of pills he got free
No one even knows his name
Bud or Buster , it was all the same

No one even knows his name
They put him in a black bag that's the shame
He'll never be around again
And no one really cares

There is a child walking on the street,
by her own, begging for something to eat.
Hundreds are passing by daily,
none paying attention to her, all ignoring little Bailey.

After a long day of begging and pleading,
she lays down in her cardboard mansion, which is not even near pleasing.
Hours go by as she thinks about her life,
no family, no friends, not even some place she could rent.

What does it mean To be loved?
No parents, no siblings; is there really someone above?
She wonders why she had been the one left alone,
seven years, with no one to hold.

Love..does it exist?
Maybe in a husband, a pet, or a kid.
''But who would accept me like this?''
No foster family, no orphanage; I'm just a Misfit.

The worst place to be on a Saturday evening is without a doubt
The orphanage on Broadway.

You see your friends' charming glares and airy laughs;
But then
You feel the children's wounded gazes and eerie smiles,

And they travel with you
For miles.

Child
Waiting
Eyes searching
Torn heart pleading
For a new family to take him home
A family with forever in mind
Another day
No one came
Please wait
Child

-ARI

the sight of him broke my heart
alone and waiting by the old white fence
and his shadow shamed the midnight dark
that transformed and shifted in its dance
the ground on which they used to lie
shivering from the breath of winter air
starving and sullen, soon to die
blood and mud thickening their hair
in time we will both be scarcely breathing
all broken up and silent with ****** scars
with the light of the moon and stars all bleeding
their perfect designs upon the lonesome yard