Looking back at the photographs, I see the same distant look in your eyes. It was as if you had been born with sorrow. You kept it in your heart forever, unleashing it the only way you knew how. It took so long to learn how to cry, and then how not to.

Hard to believe that you were once a baby, harder to see that you were an unhappy one. Those smoky blue eyes concentrating on something off frame still chill me today. All I can think of is what they were forced to see. I want to gather you in my arms, take you away to some place greater that you would eventually go. I want to hold you, to feel you breathe; to know that you're alive.

Your third Christmas, you had hide among the boxes and wrapping paper. When the camera finally found you, you spared no smile. Pale and blonde, you look as you always do, about to cry, but fighting back every voice telling you to let go. You remained defiant. Your tight little mouth wants to scream, "Go away. . . . but don't forget me. Don't leave me to face this alone."

Four and in the bathtub, you stare at the lens from the corner of your eye. A crown of light surrounds your head, and you are a reluctant angel. Still no smile, not even the slimmest of grins, yet emotion fills your eyes. Always sad and enigmatic, they serve as a shocase for your pain. You seem to be bracing yourself to go under the warm water, never to return.

Your sixth birthday seems to be the only happy memory. You smile, pure yet contained. Your mother holding you tight, you felt her love seeping through as warmth. You could feel her smiling cheeks against yours. You knew that you were finally home.

Your smoky eyes still burn at me through the mirror. We still hate one another. I haven't smiled in a decade; we haven't cried since we were two. We still lock everything away, and struggle to fight back the pain. We ignore the strangers. We refuse to tell them of the hate that feeds us, of the secrets that throw us down, of how we would die if they only knew all that we've seen, all that we've done.

No. . . .
We'll remain scared and abused.