Little Girls of Three - For Julie, Rip

You wore your height and weight As a disguise and armour Over an old wound That was still raw Just never healed The toddler victim way deep inside Deciding never again to be frail Not look like easy prey Raped by a boy she knew One she looked up to He did it then left her by herself To find her own way home This little girl of three All alone to find a way to pick up The pieces of her broken heart Of her murdered innocence Just her and her tattered bloody dress So disillusioned So lost Abandoned and forgotten With no one to protect her A three-year old so easily betrayed This three-year old never able to forget Still there after all these years Still stunned at being sullied Still shocked being abandoned Still crying to be saved Dying to erase the hurt inflicted Her shattered world never to be the same Nothing more than a remaining shell Like her light had been blown out And it stayed dark just not right inside This little girl of three Was still surviving on her own In spite of the years The extra height and weight The thirty years that passed Vaguely her older sisters still remembered how Overnight they’d lost their joyful little sister And something just wasn’t right Like so many other stories Will it ever come to an end What evil lurks That preys on little girls of three Submitted on February 11, 2021 for contest 3 POETRY sponsored by ANTHONY BIAANCO - RANKED 7TH AP: 3rd place 2020 Originally posted on February 17, 2018