by Donel Raum
A Little girl stared out the window
And watched the cars pass on her street
Thinkin’ about a bedtime story
Of a girl she longed to meet
And a boy who’d often visit her
And say little one
come take my hand
Come fly with me
And you will see
What its like in Neverland
Wendy can you hear me
Do you see me when I cry
Can you share with me
your happy thoughts
Can you teach me how to fly
Would peter and his lost boys
Help me fight old Captain Hook
Cause I’m tired of living
Each passing day
Without the smile
That pirate took
But as she sat there all alone
A painful memory filled her head
She cried out to her mamma
There’s a monster in my bed.
But mamma didn’t answer
Off chasing demons of her own
And monsters steal your innocence
When they are left with you alone.
And so it goes with bedtime stories
Time passed ever slowly by
She always wished for Wendy to come to sing her a lullaby
But Wendy didn’t know
how to console her broken heart
Or how to fix the shattered pieces
of her world so torn apart.
Wendy, you didn’t save me
you didn’t teach me how to fly
And the fairy dust I found
only taught me how to lie.
The road I took to Neverland
Where I thought I’d find some peace,
only numb the painful scars
and quiet the thoughts that I believe.
So the little girl went on her own
To find that second star to the right
With no one there to tell her
Of the dangers in the night
And the lost boy that She found
And thought would save her from that place
turned out to be another pirate
who left bloodstains on her face.
But through all her pain and sorrow,
and every pirate faced alone
She always longed for Wendy
and a love she’s never known
Well Wendy finally came
and when she looked into her eyes
She saw her own reflection
And every tear shed ever cried.
Little girl can you forgive me
For not teaching you to fly
I know I wasn’t there
To dry the tears when you would cry.
But the lies the lost boys told you,
the scars the pirates left behind,
the mom and dad that sold your soul for substances
To numb their mind
Turned my heart into the blackened coal
Without a shred of any worth
And I looked upon you with disdain
Unfit to even walk the earth.
But when I left you in the darkness,
beaten scared and all alone,
when I turned and walked away
from the dark chasm you call home
I only found a deeper sadness
then my heart of coal could bare
Because I realized what hurt you most
was not the pirates snare,
nor mom and dad, or neverland,
and not that old lost boy
that beat you to a pulp
And robbed you of all your joy
But I who left the deepest cuts
Upon your weary heart
By shaming your existence
And tearing us apart
And what I’ve come to realize
What I hope you’ll someday see
Is that I’m the one on exile child
Asking you to rescue me.
This is a poem I wrote about my life
The little girl is my inner child and Wendy is me. It represents a sort of inner struggle I face. The little girl is wanting Wendy to show up and rescue her. She feels that she has abandoned her and has had to endure all those things alone.
Wendy, on the surface sees her as weak. She blames her. Looks upon her with disdain. She is ashamed of her. She has avoided her as a way of cutting off the poisonous limb that has held her back for so long. But when she is faced with the truth, she sees that she avoided her, locked her away, not because of the little girl’s weakness, but because of her own.
She realizes that the little girl was the strong one. In the end, it was Wendy’s own shame and weakness that she was running from. She realizes that the strength was in her all along. She sees that she only needs to draw upon her past to find that strength and the only person that can rescue her is herself.
That is when the two become one. Whole.
You can find Donel’s nonprofit, Addict to Artist.
I was unable to “escape” my abuse and the aftermath of it. My addictions became that for me. Assurance that I would ALWAYS have a way to escape.
What I found though, is that as hot as the frying pan was, the fire was much, much hotter.