As they drove home on a deserted road
the demon in their veins still fluidly flowed,
with mounted tension causing friction,
they began as usual their drunken dissension.

Clenched fists on faces connected
brakes slammed, a door flung wide
and onto the road he angrily pushed her
While in the back seat, a little girl cried.

The woman he left sobbing on the road
with an arm broken from a twist of his hold.
Then he reversed and ran over her feet.
Frightened, the little girl  ran, tried to escape!

He pursued the little girl until he caught her
Grabbing her hands and feet, he hoisted her
back bent and belly towards the darkened sky
as if in pagan proffer while his wife cried
‘Please, spare the life of our daughter’!

They promised again and again not to drink.
Over twenty five years passed in drunken abuse,
then with age and sickness, they were forced
to keep their long ago promise’s forgotten.
To spite the violence, the little girl still felt love
and when they died, different tears she sobbed.

The memories fragmented spanned over time
uninvited visions, of a little girl, lost and terrified,
creep into a grown woman’s night time mind.
Again last night, the little girl, inside me cried!
 

TeAnne © Oct. 19. 1998