By Katelynn Hutchinson
A sound much like revolvers cracking
Deafens a reject child.
No longer does it feel the mirrors plastered to its hands,
Splintered glass like razor blades now glide across its face
Leaving trails of blood that run like waterfalls;
Lines that draw the grinning face of Agony.
Milky eyes churn like winding rivers,
Sinking in a sea of absence,
Fingers rip and peel away at skin that tears like paper
Unknown to it was the bone which wiggled through a pale skin coat;
A spear too blunt to wound.
Now the child sat
Huddled in its empty embrace
Of fingers too fractured to soothe guilty skin.
They reach to shut its eyes
As if then mortality dare not touch it.
Now as a force so unforgiving
Rips innocence from consciousness,
The child slithers away into the dirt
To feed the starved roots
Of wildflowers that bloom like mold from smears of ash,
Like fireworks in a midnight sky,
To nod at the gleaming sun with the winds gentle exhale-
Something shivers from beneath the rubble.
A sound much like revolvers cracking.