Between wake and sleep

I wear your disappointment like a wet furry blanket. It's is an unflattering look for me, the color is all wrong. It pulls down at my shoulders, pins me to my knees, in the dark, by myself.

On my knees.

Your disappointment has tainted the earth beneath me, wet it, it drips from my shroud of sticky sweet shame. My feet sink, my pretty red shoes are slowly disappearing and I struggle to save them, they are my favorite! The more I struggle the deeper they go, sinking.. sucked into the abyss.

My pink ribbon? My red shoes?

I lift my head and search for you, you glimmer among the pretty people, and you stand out, paler, darker, brighter, and slicker. I cried for you, the only name I know, I screamed it into the crowd and no

one...

looked...

....but you. You turned your head to regard me as I knelt in the wet, wet earth, under my cold, cold shame. Your gifts lay around me like so many broken toys, forgotten, unappreciated and discarded. I had thought them manufactured in China, you know. Lead paint handed out to the masses, a way to see who could ingest the most and live. I did not know each one was lovingly crafted just for me, only me. Special, the feeling I long for.. the very thing you offered me. The very thing I walked all over.


Your eyes were dark, like I was just another .. Just another 'nother. That look sucked away my breath; I felt my heart shrivel up inside my chest, I .. died a little. I could see my pink ribbon in your back pocket, jammed in there among others.. red and purples and blues.. there was not another pink, pink was just for me. My ribbon inched to climb high, coil in your belt loop. You shoved it back in among the others.

"I'm lost!" I called to you. My plea was desperate.

"Yes, you are." You agreed, calmly.

"Won't you take me home again?" Quieter, fearful.

"It wouldn't do you any good little girl."

There was silence between us. A long drawn out silence. I struggled again, in the mud, pulling crawling, scratching, crying. Still I only sunk deeper. The part of you that still had a finger on my words, that part? That part of you whispered in my ear.. "Don't struggle." I was instantly soothed. Falsely lulled.

"Take me home! I cannot be here, I think I am not supposed to be here!" I begged you again, the wind was picking up,, whipping at my hair and I saw my pink ribbon teased from your pocket, barely holding on. If it blew away I'd turn to dust.

"It won't do you any good, little girl.. I already changed the lock."

And then you turned your back on me. Left me there in my coat of shame and humiliation. I was dirty here, all the shiny coating of me was worn away. My sparkle had dimmed. Surely I would die here now, lost forever to the dark nothing of your shadow world.

Something squeezed my heart, made me gasp and the part of you that cupped my words, that part that ached for yesterday.. that part of you dropped a lock pick in the mud before me.

And left me with a puzzle.. and a stop watch.