(Warning: Poem makes reference to child abuse)
She taught me how to stay out of sight
the women who worked the candy counter
Dragged my fourteen-year-legs in beside her
as management brushed past, oblivious
Stick to the aisles and passageways, she said
Make sure you are always busy.
She couldn’t say the words that burned on her tongue:
He’ll follow you into darkened corners of the warehouse
He’ll lock the doors and tell you it’s all your fault
No one talked about what this man did,
five floors beneath the department store opulence
While people shopped, and ate, and bought
The wheels of consumerism, well-oiled
stuffing our consciousness with lies and deceit
the vulnerable confined to shadows and margins
But some of us will never forget
Innocent fragments haunting locked corners
Ensuing rage still railing against the injustice
That puts a pedophile in charge.
(Image my own)
One Woman's Quest 