Tragic Nuisance

Thoughts on the cruelty of some people, and trying to understand why some people eventually "snap".

Little cousin had a friend who
wore daddy-long-legs glasses
and a pink Barbie shirt
that exposed her bellybutton.
Her parents left her
with a different family
almost every week,
playing hide and seek
but she never got found.
Looked into her eyes
and saw her soul
smeared across train tracks
like that man who made
the trains late yesterday.

Didn't hear about her for three years.

Today, little cousin told me that
she drank bleach like bottled amnesia.
Had to get her stomach pumped
but it was really her heart
that needed intensive care,
vacant like her dissolved stomach.
Nowadays she still just wanders
around during break by herself,
because everyone says she's just
looking for attention.

Sometimes Columbine just seems fair.