The girl lies in bed and the taste of fear lingers on her tongue.
The scent of blood attends her and she trembles in the absence of the sun.
She clenches every muscle as she waits for the assault to begin.
She’s wrapped up in the blankets but it’s no use ‘cause it’s here inside her skin.
As the darkness closes in, fifteen years are slowly stripped away;
She’s falling back through time, head over heels, day by day.
Like a poisonous plant under an acid rain,
The feeling grows in her again and again.
The rage rises inside her to block out the pain.
But she bows her head as she feels the shame.
The footsteps mount the stairs. She knows that sound, she knows it well.
The door creaks open. She starts her nightly descent into hell.
The song echoes inside her. Like a mantra she repeats it every day.
Hoping it will ease the pain that never goes but only fades away.
She’s alone inside her head, alone in a group of all her friends.
She’d give anything to touch someone, but this isolation never ends.
Like a poisonous plant under an acid rain,
The feeling grows in her again and again.
The rage rises inside her to block out the pain.
But she bows her head as she feels the shame.
She wakes every morning wishing she had died. She sets the clock for five.
So that she can have more hours in her body pretending she’s alive.
Mother said that there’s no monsters in the dark, no need for tears or fright.
But she knows that there’s one monster and her mother feeds him dinner every night.
The ice invades her heart as she wills her body not to feel.
Fifteen years later she will understand that time does not heal.
Like a poisonous plant under an acid rain,
The feeling grows in her again and again.
The rage rises inside her to block out the pain.
But she bows her head as she feels the shame.
Daddy said that she must take the blame.
Now she’s out of the ice and into the flame.
She knows every time that it’s all the same,
She’s alone in the dark again and again,
Again and again,
Again and again.
(1999)
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