Unlovely One-A Poem From a Grandmother

I am a grandma, and have just finished the adoption process with my 6 year old granddaughter. It has been hell, and it will be some time before she is really all right.

I wrote a poem about her; thought you might like to share it.
Marantha-March 11,2011

Her mama promised she’d be there to keep the dark at bay,
but then she watched as secretly her mama drove away;
she huddles underneath her bed, for monsters now will come,
a silent little shell who never knew another home.

Policemen sit her in a chair as through the house they search,
their radios crack loud and when they stare at her it hurts;
a lady takes her hand and leads her quietly away,
and promises she’ll never spend another lonely day.

Another house, with strangers making food for her to eat,
they show her to a bed and say that this is where she’ll sleep,
the rules are read aloud so she will know just how to act;
but in their eyes she sees that they expect much less than that.

Monsters quickly found her, all alone there in the night,
she huddled ‘neath the bed to shut them out with all her might;
strangers tried to understand and gently coaxed her out,
but little girls don’t have the words to say what it’s about.

Mama lied to her, and then the quiet lady too;
police are so official that they don’t know what to do;
strangers treat the symptoms but they can’t reach through the veil,
and little girls with monsters in their heads are bound to fail.

Now doctors and the therapists all brightly smile and say
that she’s a lucky girl and soon will learn a better way;
at school the grownups whisper as they watch her carefully;
the church is tall and crowded – but no one there can see.

All these good intenders are just strangers smiling bright;
the one that she belonged to left her crying in the night;
she longs for friends, but children seem to know when one’s adrift,
and shun her second-best attempts at making herself fit.

In time she learned to cope, and monsters stayed beneath the bed,
the bleeding wounds around her heart became a wall instead;
grown-up eyes said many things, but there she did not look,
and every thing they handed her she thanked them for and took.

One day the quiet lady came; her mama had been found,
the court decreed her fit, and so to her the child was bound.
Now back the little girl must go, regardless of the cost, of
a soul so quickly shattered, and hard-won peace now lost.

Her mama promised she’d be there to keep the dark at bay,
But yet again she watches as her mama drives away;
she huddles underneath her bed, for monsters now will come;
a silent little shell who knows there’ll never be a home.



Read more: http://authspot.com/poetry/unlovely-one/#ixzz1GZtfcHTB