477. Flashbacked

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Be careful, she could break with a touch.

Her skin is like glass,

And she feels too much.

Tread lightly, in following her trail.

She’s gone far away,

And her mind, it is frail.

Come quickly, or it may be too late.

Time waits for no one,

And time is our fate.

Talk softly, and don’t scare her further.

She can’t see you move,

Your face is a blur.

Be gentle… She’s meager and brittle.

Her body is old,

But her mind, it is little.

Be careful, she could break with a touch.

Her skin is like glass

And she feels too much.

K. Aldaya, 5/22/19

Picture: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rbPVrZOLO3I

462. The Sinner

Pulled apart. I come undone.

From the start I’m forced to run.

Run from one point to another.

I am me and then the other.

Words confound. I spin in place.

I make no sound. My words: they race,…

Inside myself where they collide,

And try to escape to the outside.

Drained and weak. I grip my heart.

I can’t speak. I’m torn apart.

My heart beats, and beats, and beats,

While inside, history repeats.

Pulled apart. I come undone.

Will this fight ever be won?

For as in war, there are no winners.

There are no saints, only sinners.

K. Aldaya, 12/28/18

Picture: https://rightsinfo.org/excluded-schoolchildren-at-serious-risk-of-knife-crime-and-youth-violence/

441. PTSD

The world is so busying telling me,

How I should feel and who I should be,

That it’s never, even once, stopped to think,

Whether I’m not exactly who I’m meant to be.

Maybe I will never be like you.

Maybe I’m not supposed to.

Maybe asking me to be something else,

Is the reason I can’t get through.

Maybe I would be okay,

If the world accepted what’s different.

Though, no matter how accepting it claims to be,

Some of us leave too much of an imprint.

We make a mess. Stand out too much.

Cops trail us and build up a case.

“It’s odd you were at the crime scene,

Even odder that your prints were all over the place!

Guilty by association, my child.

You’re guilty for showing-up: time and again.

You’re a victim, but perhaps an accomplice as well.

Did you not know it would drive you insane?

Now you are just as responsible.

Only criminals return to the crime!

You could have been normal…like us,

Instead, you’ve wasted this courts precious time.”

Yet, if we may speak to this court, sir.

We feel guilty and shameful each day,…

That we haven’t moved on…couldn’t move on…

And fell down, and apart, and astray.

We didn’t know how. We still don’t know now,

How to escape from that place,

Though if we could one day do so,

As you’ve stated, we’ve already left our trace;

A trace of guilt. A trace of our crimes,…

Of guilt by association.

No matter what we may say to these crimes,

The world will ne’er forgive the implication.

The implication that we are criminals.

That not being like you. Not living like you,

Is a bloody-bed of our own making;

For there’s only acceptance for crimes you live through,

But ones which stay, fester, and remain,

Which turn us wretched, and drive us insane,

Are the ones which society won’t accept.

And refuse to consider,…o’erlooking the brain.

Yes, the world is so busy telling me,

How I should feel and who I should be,

Yet has it ever wondered why we’re not free,

To be who life has made us to be?

No, I am not like you or them,

And no, I will never be in the end;

Though just because I am different,

Must I be rejected ’til the end?

Placed up on trial again, and again to defend…

Why I am the way I am?

I’m a lifetime of sounds and sights you can’t see.

Yet, men like to spurn what they don’t understand,

And charge for the crime of PTSD.

K. Aldaya, 5/23/18

Picture: By: Bill Oxford on Unsplash; https://unsplash.com/photos/OXGhu60NwxU

438. Doppelganger

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/

437. While You Sleep I Lie Alone

While you sleep I lie alone,

And cry, curled up, in my old home.

In the corner, where I lie,

I cry, and cry, and cry, and cry;

Yet never does the house fill up,…

The tears, they always dry right up,

And leave me all alone.

While you sleep I lie alone,

And drift away to my old home,

Where even tears wave me goodbye;

As swiftly as they drop…they dry,

As if they never fell at all.

Time ticks and forgets it all.

Nothing left, just dust and bone,

And memories left all alone…

On the floor.

K. Aldaya, 4/25/18