At Eleven

Impatient to be twelve at eleven,

The dawn of puberty yet unbroken,

That maiden morning of adolescence,

Marking the passage of her innocence,

With flowers pressed inside a diary,

The pages she turned to repeatedly,

A name crayoned, a cut-out valentine,

The word “forever” with an underline.

Before no one realized that she was gone,

Tricked into entering a stranger’s car,

Terrified as it sped upon the tar,

And stopped abruptly in the wilderness,

Strange hands upon her, wild to possess.

She punched and kicked and pulled his greasy hair,

Primal instincts she summoned from somewhere,

Until he quit and shoved her out the door,

She wasn’t worth the trouble anymore.

Watching the car skid, back on her two feet,

She found the way when high beams lit the street.