A Read Aloud Sestina For Her

I can’t be alone tonight

but I’m scared of the people outside of my door

and the times that I tried to step out in the world

I get crushed and go back to a shell of a girl.

I miss having someone to call who would run to my rescue

or run just to come to my side when I needed an ear that would hear

me and make me feel like I am real. Does anyone hear

me at all I just want an acknowledgement that I’m not alone tonight.

If I jumped off a bridge to see if I could fly would somebody rescue

me from the fall? Or would anyone come to my door

if I pulled the steering wheel on route 4? They’d say I was just a girl

who was troubled not say I was afraid of the world.

No one notices the quiet girl in the corner in this loud world.

Even when I scream for help nobody hears

me, outside of my head. People now underreact to the girl

with the scars all over herself. Maybe they’ll realize after tonight

when I cut deeper I needed some help. When someone walks through the door

will I already be cold, or will they still rescue

me? Is it really a rescue

if I don’t want to be alive anymore? I feel so lost in this world

I want to pack all my stuff and walk out the door

and go somewhere where no one would hear

if I pulled the trigger and ended it all. Tonight,

it’s just wishful thinking. I’m still stuck in the body of a girl

who has broken down too far for repair. A girl

who can’t even rescue

herself from a knife yielded in her own hand. Tonight,

let the world

not hear

of the girl hiding behind the door.

Her own mother doesn’t even check behind the door

to see her daughter on the floor. She was just a girl

that no one ever heard

cause no one ever listened. They could have rescued

before she made the ultimate decision. But the world

is one person’s breath quieter tonight

because she gave up her fight. Tonight, she’s no longer a girl

but an angel who shed her body behind the door. She rescued

herself from a world where she was never heard.

4-10-2018