Little girl
So naive. So gullible.
Too trusting to understand
A world full of people self-destructible
There she goes
The 7 year old girl
Her tangled, soft curls
Unwitting the near end
Within her own home
With a family so lovable
What made her so vulnerable?
Cruelty could have crushed her
But he chose deeper
A wound to the soul
In it obscured
The family secret
To never be told
Never trust those you love most
Lessons she learns
Scars she bestows
She thought they’d last forever
Though they faded away
The ache refused to stray
Until she found the light
Of the Lord above
Never tangible never visible
Her real protector
It wasn’t a man
It was my God
A world so evil
So she thought
But through the cracks of her sorrow
Light slipped in
She learned that broken things can still be whole
That scars can bloom where pain once lived
Her heart once dark
Now glowed with divine spark
No longer afraid to feel Love or Trust
For the Lord of all has saved her heart
In writing this poem, I took from my own experiences of growing up with family issues that often left me feeling like I couldn’t even trust the people closest to me. I feel that this broken trust shaped my thoughts growing up, but at the same time I included reflections on what my mother taught me while raising me in a Catholic household: to always put my trust and love in God, because he would never leave me. Over time knowing that God loves me has filled my heart with forgiveness; therefore, I wanted to apply his divine protection into the turning point of my writing. My writing process was challenging because I struggled with phrasing, imagery and putting into words what I wanted to say. Finding a way to shift the tone so the piece wouldn’t remain entirely sad was difficult as well; I wanted to show God’s presence and his work in my life. I used literary devices such as symbolism and repetition to emphasize the themes and contrast between betrayal and redemption. Structurally, I wanted my poem to flow from darkness into light that started with the innocence of a small child to the wounds of betrayal and finally to the healing through faith. I didn’t have any literary influences but I did include some phrases from the creed “ I believe”, which inspired the way I asserted faith in my writing.