Lullaby
Little child, in a room with all the lights turned off,
huddles under blankets. Not a tear will burn her eye.
She lies there in her silence. Not a whisper. Not a cough,
waiting for her mother and a quiet lullaby.
But Mother's on the other side of every wooden door.
Swallowing the pain so that she'll never have to cry.
Bottles line the tables, in the cupboards, on the floor.
All that's left is dirt. She can no longer see the sky.
And every night her daughter, in a barely whispered prayer,
wonders what it is she's done. What tipped the cosmic scale.
The heaviness that falls between, the cigarettes in air,
the way her mother always seems to wear a broken veil.
Why her mother shies away from strangers at the bell,
why it seems they're living in a fierce and hidden jail.
The child knows there's something else. The mother would not tell.
Until one night she did – a long and sobbing drunken tale.
This child wasn't one who'd ever been conceived in love.
She thought her veins held poison. There was cruelty in her blood.
God knows how she would get to sleep. What she'd be dreaming of.
And when she'd wake, the truth would fall, a harsh and echoed thud.
The child grew, but never saw the beauty in her face.
Below her skin she only saw the dirty shame. The mud.
Before she could begin, she knew that she had lost the race.
And she began to let it out, a quiet, seeping flood.
She found that blood was red and waiting underneath her skin.
It only took a little and she knew that she was real.
She didn't have a god, and so she had no use for sin.
But everybody needs to prove that they know how to feel.
She never crossed her fingers, and she didn't wish on stars.
She leaned outside her window in these moments that she'd steal.
She didn't mind the whispers, and she didn't mind the scars.
She didn't mind that they would take a lifetime just to heal.
She never blamed her mother. Such an ugly twist of fate –
she blames herself, though knows she's wrong. She can't remove the stain.
For who could love a child who was only born of hate?
An everyday reminder of one night's enduring pain,
her mother couldn't love her. And she thinks she understands.
She starts to feel the weight her mother bears. A silver chain.
She fears one night she won't break free. She tries to breathe. She stands.
She walks alone on sidewalks and she doesn't feel the rain.
But time still passes. She survived. She thinks now that she's grown.
She looks outside her window and she tries to hold her sigh,
though no one's there to hear. She'd independent. She's alone.
And still she won't allow herself to simply fall and cry;
she's far too proud for that. She runs an absent-minded comb.
She spends her days with him and always hates to say goodbye,
but enters with relief the quiet of her empty home.
She lies awake in silence. (Someone bring a lullaby.)