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The Little Girl with the Sad Eyes
The little girl with the sad eyes looks oddly familiar to me.
She's in the same seat everyday, third row, right side, up against the window.
With hazel eyes she stares out at a world turned white and grey.
She sits there everyday, never speaking, barely blinking, holding her breath as she waits for the crash that she knows is coming.
It'll hit like a freight train when she walks through her front door,
And she'll cry herself to sleep at night.
Nobody knows,
Nobody cares,
And that's the way she wants it.
I sat with her the other day,
I watched her as she watched a world turned even greyer by the rain as it streaked by the windows.
She's a pretty little girl with the weight of the world on her shoulders.
Long, blonde hair streaked with brilliant highlights from the summer sun, hazel eyes with their sparkle gone, small rounded nose, and a pouting mouth.
I place her age at seven or eight.
I compare myself to her, we're nothing alike.
Her melancholy is in sharp contrast so my carefree ways,
I'm quick to smile, she's apt to frown.
No blonde hair here, only short, black hair,
My nose is not so rounded, it has more of a point,
But yes, my lips are pouty.
And our eyes, they're exactly the same shade but mine are alive where hers are just faking for the sake of someone else.
But I recognize her now.
That little girl was me about eight years ago.
And the world did crash that day, not so much like a freight train but more like all the good China being dropped at once,
And it's obvious that someone's in big trouble so let's point the finger and say it wasn't us.
The world crashed and fell into a thousand shards of broken stars and broken dreams, and broken hearts.
But we picked them up and glued them back together.
The girl with the sad eyes has gone away.
She just wanted me to remember how it was and that now it's not so bad.
So I'll slide over next to the window and watch a world suddenly alive with colour.
The little girl with the sad eyes would have liked the reds and golds.
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Comments
this poem is about the death of my great-grandmother, which occured just about a month after i turned 8. my nana was a very important person to my life and her death, which was my first real experience of such a thing, was difficult for me. she had always been a source of many things to my young life, some of which i believe influence me to this day. she was a source of great stories which at the time seemed fantastical to my young mind ("you didn't have running water? nana, how old are you?"), she was a source of comedy ("grandma, you're hair's purple." "your ass is purple."), and she was where i learned my only Polish word. (i got my mouth washed out with soap by my grandmother when i said it, but nana thought it was funny to here me say it. i still don't know what it means, no one would tell me...and i've long since even forgotten what "it" was.) most of all though, nana was a source of love. when the world seemed cold and cruel all i had to do was curl up in her lap and breathe in her scent of cookies and vanilla and numerous other things that made her seem like she belonged on a bakery shelf. and wrapped up in her arms, everything was alright. i miss you, nana.
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