your eyes
by Leila Macbeth, March 2014
Your eyes
burn questions
into the thick air
surrounding us.
You’re watching,
waiting,
for me to tell you something.
What happened out there?
How it is that I’m still here?
Your lips
are so still.
You don’t know what to say.
What is it you want to know?
What it felt like?
What he looked like while he did it?
You can’t look away.
You’re sure if you watch long enough you’ll see something that makes more sense
than a child with fists still full of wonder
and curiosity.
You want to catch what’s been broken,
to glimpse what’s been shattered,
to witness her falling,
like ashes to dust,
disintegrating before you,
like a pillar of salt
collapsed.
You look back when you’re told to look ahead.
Is it me you’re afraid for?
Is it me your afraid of?
this tiny body that grips death in its right hand,
holding secrets you can’t rock to sleep,
questions you have no answers for,
a truth too big to cradle in your arms
where she no longer seems to fit…
So you beg in silence that someone will come who knows how to hold her
because you know she is too small to hold herself.
And you pray they will teach her.
And that someday she will come back to you
whole.
That someday
she will come back to you
asking
to reach behind your trembling eyes…
to the question
you’ve only ever really been asking her…
Is it true?
that clasped between sweating palms,
quietly pacing hallways of remembering,
slowly burning open the cracks in its covering,
Is it true
that you too hold strength enough to survive?
Your eyes
burn questions
into the thick air
surrounding us.
You’re watching,
waiting,
for me to tell you something.
What happened out there?
How it is that I’m still here?
Your lips
are so still.
You don’t know what to say.
What is it you want to know?
What it felt like?
What he looked like while he did it?
You can’t look away.
You’re sure if you watch long enough you’ll see something that makes more sense
than a child with fists still full of wonder
and curiosity.
You want to catch what’s been broken,
to glimpse what’s been shattered,
to witness her falling,
like ashes to dust,
disintegrating before you,
like a pillar of salt
collapsed.
You look back when you’re told to look ahead.
Is it me you’re afraid for?
Is it me your afraid of?
this tiny body that grips death in its right hand,
holding secrets you can’t rock to sleep,
questions you have no answers for,
a truth too big to cradle in your arms
where she no longer seems to fit…
So you beg in silence that someone will come who knows how to hold her
because you know she is too small to hold herself.
And you pray they will teach her.
And that someday she will come back to you
whole.
That someday
she will come back to you
asking
to reach behind your trembling eyes…
to the question
you’ve only ever really been asking her…
Is it true?
that clasped between sweating palms,
quietly pacing hallways of remembering,
slowly burning open the cracks in its covering,
Is it true
that you too hold strength enough to survive?