I didn’t recognize you. I didn’t want to know,

The secrets and the truths held,

Deep within your eyes…and although,

I see you near to me. I’m afraid to glance your way.

For how can one save the lost;

Trapped in a time far away?

I can not speak of the horror; Only of the screams.

I hear them slip through your lips,

And besiege me in my dreams.

I’m sorry I left you there; In that place, all alone…

Where the clock’s forever stuck,

At quarter-past “never-known”.

–I stand atop a dark stairway. I see you below,

And as your eyes look my way,

I spy a looming shadow;

And as the shadow passes o’er, our eyes, they fin’lly meet.

I know I can not save you,

So once again I retreat.–

I didn’t recognize, ’cause I didn’t want to know,

That the girl in the mirror,

Had the same bleak eyes which show…

The anguish of a child betrayed. A child left behind…

Deserted and forsaken,

In the corners of my mind.

K. Aldaya, 4/27/18

Picture: Vintage image used in the book “Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children” by Ransom Riggs; https://www.pinterest.com/pin/330522060122327068/