Hold on
Georgie.
Splashed brunette
with
white letters
Locked for decades within his head.
12 years old he is,
White washed with rage.
Just a little boy,
drowning with shame.
Georgie;
He's an angry boy
An anxious boy
An abused boy
A scared boy
A kind boy.
Above all, a lost boy.
His world torn apart.
Hold on
Georgie.
Four square walls and two locked windows.
Mattress on the floor; all he has left.
Left in the world because
"Georgie wrecks everything."
Staff, they come and go
shaking their heads
However Ruby has stayed.
"You're going to be happier there Georgie, happier than you have been in a long while."
she tells him.
How much he wants to believe her; believe she is not scared of him. Believe she still loves him.
There must be more to life than this
She thinks as she dances with shadows in dark.
Vio-let vio-lent dripped monsters slither skin
She must dismiss the heaviness standing upon her chest.
She must dismiss the violence.
Divorce: she's in the middle of the fights.
School: she's in the middle of chaos.
Teacher: she's in the middle of grief.
Friends: she's in the middle of finding herself.
Mother: she's in the middle of dancing words drenched in biohazard signs.
Father: she's in the middle of watching his bags packed, out the screen door, "I love you."
Georgie,
She wishes she could be,
cared for by Ruby
even when she is angry
arms wrapped tightly around.
Safety.
Surrounded by something other than this.
Escape this mess.
Escape herself.
Pretending to be someone else.
Screaming loudly "Save Me!"
He's an anrgy boy
She's an angry girl
An anxious boy
An anxious girl
An abused boy
An abused girl
A scared boy
A scared girl
A kind boy
A kind girl
Above all, a lost boy.
Above all, a lost girl.
His world torn apart.
Her world torn apart.
Hold on
Gerogie.
© Jo Tomso
** I read the book, Georgie by Malachy Doyle when I was about 10 years old. It drew me in from the cover, and on the first page I was hooked. This book is one of a kind, at least it was for me at 10 years old to pick it up. It was a completely different story than what I was experiencing, however, for one reason or another I felt that in some context it was the same. Now, a decade later, I always recall this book and the way it spoke to me, and helped me. This poem is for all of the lost kids finding their way home. Continue the journey please, there is always a light within darkness. Promise.
