What They Don't Tell
Theme: Child Cruelty
.Look at the way she braids her doll’s hair,
each plastic strand woven tight as a secret,
while her own tangles hide the stories
she won’t tell at show-and-tell.
Watch how she flinches at raised voices,
how she’s learned to fold herself smaller
than yesterday’s newspaper, how she’s mastered
the art of becoming invisible.
Her drawings tell what her mouth won’t:
stick figures with angry crayon slashes,
houses without doors, black suns hanging
like bruises in construction paper skies.
The teacher sees, but sees nothing ,
calls her “quiet,” calls her “shy,”
while the child builds fortresses
from broken alphabet blocks.
At recess, she counts her steps:
one-two-three-safe, one-two-three-safe,
a ritual as sacred as bedtime prayers,
though God stopped listening last summer
when daddy started drinking breakfast
and momma learned to sleep standing up.
She knows all the hiding places .
Behind the dryer, under the stairs,
in the space between heartbeats
where children shouldn’t have to live.
But she’s learned the mathematics of survival:
how many minutes to hold her breath,
how many steps to the neighbor’s door,
how many lies make a truth.
Her tears come silent as snow,
melting before they can leave evidence.
