Tears Down My Cheeks

Oh peaceful day
Where have you gone
I’ve gotten older
And you’ve left me alone.
The flocks have flown
The sparrows came and went
The cool air seeps into my lungs
But all I feel is older,
Older, and undone.
I used to listen to the sparrows
The morning doves and crickets too
I used to scan the skies for rainbows
And listen the rain fall on the roof.
I used to keep snails and frogs and snakes
And I used to listen to the leaves dancing upon the wind
I used to draw on the driveway with colored chalks,
And I used to shoot hoops, jump rope, ride my bike, and go on walks.
What do I have left but a busy day,
Countless heartaches and the memories of past mistakes?
When beauty has been tainted by darkness and sin
You tend to not see the beauty still around you because deep inside you feel that, like you, someday it will end.
I long to be back inside that little girl;
The one innocent to the world,
The one unscarred by violence
And unbroken by the loss of love.
I long to reach my arm up and trace the paneled lines of ceiling in my grammamma’s house in the mountains, hear the roar of the semi on the highway;
I long to dip my feet in the big river and fish with my papa of long ago.
I’m tired of the pain of life; I long to stay a little girl; curled up in the sleeping bag of dancing deer,
And dream of princes riding over mountain peaks.
I long to tuck my feet under me upon the window seat in that little cabin on the hill, and stay there till the sun sinks low.
I’ve slowly forgotten the child-dreams,
Forgotten the innocence of youth.
How I wish to return inside that little body, even with the rumpled braid and wild curls.
Where the pressure of life was not even a thought, and the joy of life was never-ending.
Maybe in my dreams tonight
I can be that little girl,
Because some days it’s too hard
To live in the wide, and lonely world.