She’s got too big a heart for any one place

She roams and runs, dances her sorrows away

For she is tethered, yet smiles adorn her face

As she declares, “I’ll see the world one day.”

She’s been dealt abuse, has trauma galore

And yet she whistles like she has not a care

She deserves joy, fulfilment, so much more

She dreams, of reality and setbacks unaware.

She had a box of stamps, and late at night

Never earlier, for her father might see

She scans them one by one, hoping she might

One day visit these places, laugh and be free.

Her mother’s howls, her father’s drunken yell

Tears chill her cheeks as she yanks them apart

He slaps her instead, and although this is hell

She believes this’ll go away, deep in her heart.

She finds her mother dangling from the fan

She tears her hair out, she’s had enough.

She grabs the stamps, cash, keys to the van

Runs out, to be stopped by a hand so rough.

She’s black, blue, bloody, in no time at all

And though broken, she grins the pain away

She coughs, and her voice, shattered and small

It breathes, “I think I’ll see the world today.”