I was nine years old <br />Dining room wood table, <br />Polished gleam against the open window <br />Lace curtain covers <br />White like my innocence <br />White lace burial shroud <br />I was nine years old <br /> <br />Small ivory hand placed in a large hand, <br />Worn with the troubles of the world <br />My mother looked at me with tears <br />Crystal clear in her almond eyes <br />I did not understand <br />But her face held the key to mysteries long since gone <br />Long since passed <br />Mysteries I would soon unravel for my own <br />To carry as a burden <br />Chip on the shoulder <br />A chip that never should have been <br /> <br />Words said delicately, with care <br />Fragile words like broken glass <br />Cutting and scraping at a tiny shielded heart <br />Cousin, mentor, idol <br />Carried burden of unraveled mystery <br />Too heavy to carry <br />Sought to unload the heavy hold <br />Failed, <br />And brought more upon herself <br /> <br />I could not understand <br />She loved me so, beloved cousin of mine <br />She had to <br />We were close, she and I <br />She, my protector <br />I, her keeper of adoration eternal <br />And nothing could separate us <br />Not even the five years that placed a gap in our age <br />Except the secret of the unraveled mystery <br />Long since forgotten <br />Carried on the shoulders of a fourteen-year-young girl <br />My cousin <br />Tiny capsules deliverance of dark mortality <br />Forced from tiny life <br />The facts were clear to me <br />Still, <br />I did not understand <br /> <br />Could not understand <br />Love could conquer all, I was told <br />Belief firmly lodged in mind, <br />Wrenched from safety and flung into obscurity <br />Truth blinding like harsh rays of sun <br />Burning pale skin <br />Turning dark <br />Inside out <br /> <br />I died that day in the dining room <br />With the polished wood table <br />And white lace curtains <br />And my mother's almond eyes <br />And crystal tears <br />And fragile sharp words <br />I was nine years old<br /><br />Amanda Saveley<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-day-of-my-first-death/
