PERSON Poem: what happened to you?, by Rhiannon Macdonald

What happened to you?
What happened to the girl who’s curiosity was its guide
Who explored the new ideas of the tide
Who was so unafraid to be who she was
No matter who thought or looked
No matter who judged or dared
To tell her that what she was feeling wasn’t fair
What happened to the girl that stood by her ideals
While recognizing how the world was hurting the people she loved
Who fought for love, who saw that God did the same
Who empathized with the worst
Who prayed for better times
For immediate change instead of immediate sorrow

A youthful girl of music and whimsy
Met with mixed feelings making her dizzy
The embers of the world’s end around her
Jumping into the flames like she’s asked to
Not questioning the burns on her body
As her skin melts away to oily gasoline
That contributes to the fire birthed in empty promises
You’d never ask why the flames were there in the first place nor why you were told to jump into them
The notion of questions a danger
Yet perhaps you do not see
The notions of obedience a heavier danger
A larger weight breaking away the muscles of your heart
Each vein and artery bursting into a bloody river
That drowns you, stealing your breath and your voice

No more melodies to sing
No more harmonies to attempt
Nothing left but sheet music crumpled up and thrown away
You think the fire will bring you warmth and will warm the skies until the rain comes and cools
it all
The rain is not coming
The fire is boiling hot
And as it spreads throughout the forest
It burns us all

I’m disappointed and upset and angry
Angry because I know this is not you
Upset because you cannot oppose it
And disappointed that you’d even think that way at all
I know you won’t vote.
I know you can’t escape
I know you think there’s no point to oppose
What happened to the girl
With music in her heart
And curiosity as her guide?

The girl who asked me to swim
Because she was curious
The girl who asked me about my identity
Because she was curious
The girl who asked me about my struggles
Because she was curious

That girl is dead
Buried away in a grave her own family and system put her into
Suffocating her alive and breathing it thick dirt and moss
Until her lungs did not know what true oxygen was
Only inhaling the fake breath that their new fostered child would breathe

Perhaps deep down
I believe I did not do enough
And feel that, although I did not grab a shovel
I did not bury you away
I still see your blood on my hands
Each and every day.

What happened to you is a simple question to answer, but complex in nature
What happened to you is that you died
And reborn into a cacti to pointy to the touch and uncertain of what would be said
Rather than the flowers that cacti grew
You were reborn into spikes
Prickly and sharp
Yet, deep down, that girl that was a flower is somewhere in there

I know that right now, and possibly never, that flower will never see the light of day.
And when it wilts, what then?
What happened to you?
What will happen to you?