Rose Red (Bled) and Snow White (Stained)

Rose-Red Bled and Snow-White Stained

Once, read always, in a land convulsing with war,

Were two little orphan girls fighting to stay alive,

One with hair red as blood, the other colored white as snow,

Rose Red a survivor’s spirit and Snow White a heart of gold

They stood together in the face of the horrors of a life on the streets

In a city rift with blood, hatred, terror, violence, and deceit.

Starvation standing guard claws both shield and reaper,  

The gently ruthless alternative to worser fates,

Both with innocence of pure hearts in the face of horrors,

Children of the street kinder then those barricading their doors,

Wandering the desiccated streets, dodging arms, and war crazed men,

Always ready to ease the pain, helping out again and again.

In the desert night, Rose Red veil upon her head,

Heard the crash of a lumbering man staggering past,

Shortly behind came a scurrying rat, short and cruel

 armed with a gun pointed at the giant’s back, quick as snake Rose Red

Struck, Snow White grabbed at the other and pulled him into their shed.

Thus is the story of how two came into three,

And Rose Red and Snow White took a man Bear under wing,

Where children are necessary “casualties of war”

Maybe together they made it, hand and hand through acid flames,

Or maybe they didn’t, and the world, in their absence, is just the same

Where children are worthless, and the world does not yet hang its head in shame.