What's Wrong With This Child? Poem by Lydia Bratton

Again and again she trusts his heart is true
Holding back her tears and fears
Because she knows her mother is broken too

Her heart now is truly nothing but dead
It could be the last I see
I'll manage one more fight she said
For I am nothing without me

She comes home to bitter silence
An almost feeling of content
And to her it makes no sense
But soon she'd realize where he went

He was off to drink to make her life a hell
She knew not why or when
But she knew she could never tell

She looks over and glances in the mirror
What's wrong with this child so brutally said
And as she began to cautiously tear
She limply lies with thoughts racing on her head

She never knew when it would end
Hanging on her last potential life
She wondered if her heart could ever mend

Her life so endlessly torn
Her heart so raggedly worn

When would he realize the pain he inflicts
On the child this poem so vividly depicts