can’t run away… by Toni L.A. Cross

scuffed pink saddle shoes
dangling down
and
kicking against
a frilly white bedspread

an open suitcase
tossed to one side of
a distraught and determined
little girl in pigtails
the contents
spilling out
into a jumbled heap
of girlish necessities

in her lap are
her two favorite dolls
she sniffles
and
looks back and forth
between them
trying to decide
who to leave behind

she remembers
suddenly
when she got
Nellie Sue
with her porcelain face
and
her pretty blond curls
the look
on her Daddy’s face
when she reached up
to hug him
squealing "thank you"

and she pictures
buying Anna May
when Mama took
her shopping
just the two of them
counting out the money
from her little purse
and mother smiling
proudly and saying
"you are growing up…"

she looks at
her attempt at packing
her diary
her locket
her favorite clothes
a book of poems
an apple
and
some bread

a strangled cry
a whimper
and then come the tears
a rush
a gush
a violent flood

she cannot go
she must stay
so the road
is forgotten
for another day
and passion
and rage
and longing
subside
and then
she is homesick
in her very own room
til another day
comes

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