A Child Scorned

“Eddie discovered one of his childhood’s great truths.

Grownups are the real monsters, he thought.”

– Stephen King, IT

Our parents watch us soar

down the streets on our bicycles,

seeing smiles for miles, plastered

across our faces, hearing laughter ringing

through the air. They see us frolic

across the meadows, wishing we could stay

as pure as the flowers we pluck. You see,

horror lurks beneath these streets, believe me.

A town engulfed by a thick black

wave of misfortune, death

is no stranger to us. It walks among us,

gripping our young wrists and wringing

our skinny necks. We can feel it in the air, I swear;

the spinal chill of ice cascading

down our backs, seeping into our guts.

Sewer caps aren’t enough

to quell the shed of blood, oozing crimson

from below, no. It overflows, flooding

the roads with our bodies, constructing a throne:

a mile-high pile of torn-in-two flesh, of bones

half the size of those who bear us.

The warmth of summer sun threatening

to burn our skin will be no longer. No

more bicycle rides to the shop or popsicles

melting over our fingertips like candle wax. No

more towering evergreen or red spruce. Nothing

but a ghost of what once was, a void

of destruction left behind. So don’t bother

asking “why?” when our screams to be seen

are echoing from a mile away.

Your children are suffering, yet

your eyes are wide shut.