Scratching Life Poem by RoseAnn V. Shawiak

Scratching the surface, revealing life inside, tormented
by a past that buries itself in ashes, from fires burning
angrily still.

Doubts, shadows, heads without faces, file slowly past,
haunting inner safety - loosening the security that's never
really been too good.

Unfolding memories from scraps of paper, wrinkled, torn,
difficult to read, distorted images parading forward, thrust-
ing themselves where they don't belong.

Pleading, cries of woe within, spilling tears abundantly,
crying forever for a lost childhood - one that never began,
growing up right from the beginning.

Taking care of self with no past experience, results in
failure, wanting and rebellion, withstanding all attempts
at reaching her, standing off, aloof.

Wondering why it's empty - so alone, not daring to look
beyond the surface of the skin, shallow, self-centered,
taught by no one how to feel.

There stands stranded - a child in a grown up's world,
where is the child, hair long and flowing - unsmiling,
dying inside a grown up body, never having lived a child's
life, not ever knowing what it meant to play.