Crash, bang, bright lights, shining bright, crash, bang, bang

You stumble out into a sea of blue

Your feet land on a dirty dark sheep’s fleece

Speckled with grey and showing off white blotches

Soft on your skin but an irritated feeling

A familiar pain of rolling and grasping

Scratching a red pattern on your skin

You close your eyes to stop the thoughts

In front of you is that girl

Rolling and grasping with glazed eyes full of

Boredom and loneliness and fear and confusion

“Stop,” you tell her and you see only fear

“Where has my daddy gone? Is he coming back?”

You grimace as you tell her

“You already have a daddy with his vampire teeth

And his bald head and his blue eyes”

“That’s not my daddy,” she tells you

“Where is my daddy? I want my daddy”

“You don’t want him,” you shout angrily

And her chocolate eyes drowned in pools

Pools as clear as the ones she would swim in

The ones her daddy would take her to

The man she thought was her daddy.

“He won’t come back

As sure as the stars won’t leave the sky

And the water won’t leave the sea

You will not see him again.”

You’re lying but only somewhat.

“Don’t long for him or pine.

Beg for more candy

And plead for a later bedtime.

But don’t waste your time wanting a man

Who never treated you with any respect.”

She doesn’t understand what this means

And it will take her a long time to figure it out.

She will spend many nights here on the floor

Lying in the basement and hiding in her cave

Pretending she is a warrior or a witch or a secret agent

Anything that can protect her from the broken family

From the heartbreak of an absent father

And having to replace him with a shiny new one.

Later on she’ll have to protect herself from herself

As her mind realizes what happened

And her body constantly feels covered in slime

In dirt of the lowest form

The dirt the worms won’t even touch.

And you decide to tell her none of this.

Her pools have drained as she waits

Waits for you to tell her whatever you can.

And instead you smile and pat her on the head

“You’ll be fine,” you promise to her.

“Don’t think about him and you’ll be fine.”