The Runaway Ii Poem by Karl Stuart Kline

I was out of the window and onto my bike,
Still too young to realize that I could’ve hitch-hiked.

I was on my way, without ever looking back,
Trying to get away, leaving all that I had.

Try to get to the city, get to my sister,
Out of all my family, I only missed her.

But I’d never make it. Suspicious policemen
Didn’t like my answers and so they hauled me in.

I think that my Mother hadn’t much use for me,
I was an unwelcome Responsibility.

I admit she tried, but it just wasn’t in her,
I was an unwanted child who had hoped for better.

What I finally got was incarceration,
Locked up in a “State School” for “Hospitalization.”

“Station B”, you see, wasn’t meant for delinquents,
It was meant as our “Bedlam” for loony children.

My Mother never needed a judge or jury,
Locked away without a say in what was to be

My dear Mother willfully signed my life away,
Even if she meant well, it was no help that day

I felt out of place, I was an epileptic.
I didn’t deserve to be caged with psychotics!

But it still didn’t help to tell them about me.
They just didn’t have anywhere else to put me

Because, at least with my “Hospitalization”
I would be receiving all my medication

Nobody cared that my “care” was overrated
Since I was locked away and so medicated

That nobody ever knew that I had witnessed
Children brutally abused and being harassed

As I watched our keepers (They weren’t really nurses...)
Form two long lines of children with threats and curses.

Then they faced each other and a gauntlet was made,
Sadistic amusement that we couldn’t evade...

Heavyset, with dark hair and a menacing look,
He looked like an ogre from a grim storybook.

A Troll who sent us who had caused his displeasure
Down this cruel gauntlet to receive full measure

Of cruel punishment at the hands of our “peers, ”
Feet also, getting kicked ‘til the onset of tears,

But tears could never help, they’re a sign of weakness,
Letting the buzzards know when we’re weak and helpless

We could never cry or ever tell anyone,
We could only take it, staying strong ‘til they’re done

The Troll, ruling by fear, said you’d never go Home,
And so if you cried, you’d better do it alone...