Playful laughter in a garden <br />Dark eyes flashing, curly hair <br />Infant innocence happy there: <br /> <br />'Dandelions, pretty flowers <br />Mommy, you and I can wear <br />Yellow tassels on our slippers; <br />Each of us have got a pair.' <br /> <br />Dark clouds gather in that garden <br />Shining sinister, slithering serpent, <br />Nonresistant childhood snare. <br /> <br />'Stolen candies, sweets are tempting <br />As I coil about your thigh. <br />Taste how sweet they are, like honey, <br />Like the secrets that we share.' <br /> <br />Secrets growing choke the flowers <br />Robbing laughter; until soon <br />Mother's heart must sadly sigh. <br /> <br />'Oh, my daughter, pretty daughter, <br />Gone the luster in her eye. <br />She is keeping secrets from me. <br />Why has she not told me why? ' <br /> <br />Little girls grow to be adults <br />Childhood secrets scars become, <br />Scars that taint her every song: <br /> <br />'Why are candies venom bitter? <br />Why is laughter like a cry? <br />Why has happiness forever <br />Scorned me and passed me by? <br /> <br />'Within me lives a memory <br />That will haunt me 'til I die. <br />That will haunt me 'til I die.'<br /><br />Adeline Foster<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/death-of-innocence-2/
