"Song"

~ Cassie

We wouldn’t listen to the words

Your music swept so softly over our ears

Like the wool pulled over our eyes

We were happily blind to the real chords of your heart

You tangible charlatan with your sweet notes

Pure strains of melody

To hide your tainted thoughts

Children enchanted by the colors of the fire

We let you burn us with your tempting promises

Of night and beautiful dreams

While you crept amongst the shadows

In and out of the dreams you’ve plundered

And faint whispers of lullabies passing through your cold lips

We slept so easily, wrapped in blankets of your lies

Love is easy when we’re warm and safe in your deceit

Innocence passes away

Those warm summer days

Now chilled by memories of your stormy soul

The tunes of ghosts echoing over the house

Into our room

And we stand alone now against you

You and your Siren song pounding against our broken hearts

We awoke from childhood

And saw the real color of your cold eyes

Those vermilion lips passing over sharpened teeth

Your icy, clawed hands clutching your bent and cruel frame

Down the steps of our lives

We ran through the door you had locked against us

Your beautiful song trailing behind us, so painful now

Calling us back though each strain be a sharp dagger

Cutting away at the hope of escape

Through fields once green and tender, we were specters

White shapes flying through moonlit pastures

Once so fragrant and sweet through our closed bedroom window

Through the woods now

With your song wounding our tender ears

Bare feet catching the ground

Rebounding against soft, untouched earth

A veil of breath before our faces

As though our warm bodies are unfamiliar to the world

And still you call us home as we run

We run among the trees with no direction

No home and no shelter

But we are no longer lost

Your sweet music grips our hearts

Tugs us back to your threshold, to your empty arms

We are no longer lost nor are we home

But we shall never warm your cold heart with our own

Never again

Two white shapes floating through a forest

Hidden children in the majesty of ambivalent nature

Moving past the song still beseeching, still needing to be heard

But there are no words to sing that will bring us home

No, Mother

We are not your children anymore

Damn you and your honeyed tongue and evil heart

Your cruelty and your shreds of human emotion

Goodbye, you tempting, horrid witch

Sing your songs to the house of the dearly departed

We are not your children anymore.

© 2002.