Diane

Image by Kathy Liao

She is a creature behind bars where there were no bars. Eyes peering back and forth, navigating the parameters of the room she refused to walk. Her legs would not let her. Trapped within her body, her mind, nothing moved except pulse points and eyes, even as long strings of saliva decorated her hospital gown.

“Momma” hadn’t wanted her, hadn’t held her, hadn’t cried as she was taken away; only eighteen months old, tossed from one home to another, until finally, now, here, in a place of long corridors of jammed rooms with empty souls housed within, she resided.

In dreams, she walked down tree-lined streets back, back, back to where Momma sat staring with clenched hands. No, she mustn’t return, though she always did, to this, her happy place, her escape from beatings, rapes and bad food.

Sometimes a nurse or doctor would come to examine her seeing a spark of light flash and then diminish into her deadened eyes. She was there, screaming, inaudible, but there. Howling, “yes, see me,” as they walked away; their shoes echoing on cold tiles.

An inner voice takes over as she watches them walk away.

Run, run, run, you must find a way though there is no way to make your body oblige you. He is coming again and there is no way to fight him. He, like so many others before, will take, take, take without a thought about the pain or the shame or anything else. You cannot scream. You cannot cry.

I dare you. I dare you to try.

You cannot do anything but remain still and trapped within a cage of skin and bone.

This is how it is. This is how it is, as she remembers reaching out with her eyes to “Momma,” and she turned away from her without even giving her a name. She has one now. They were up to the “D’s” that day, and so here she is. Here she is, outside of herself again, eyes darting back and forth; revealing nothing of her turmoil or terror, until another tick of the clock and time has its way with her once again.



(This story is based on a former student of mine. She was only seven when I taught her, but had the mental and emotional age of someone much younger. She was already caught in the system, going from foster home to foster home. I loved her dearly and she knew it. She used to love to sit in my lap and notice all of my jewelry. I hold her even though she was heavy, because I knew that she hadn;. It's one of the great heartbreaks in my life, that one day when I went to work she wasn't there. She had been transferred to another foster home over the weekend. There was no way for me to find out where she was, because I was only her teacher. Just the same, she continues to be in my thoughts even now, all these years later.)