After the Flood

I, the person you see before you
was born of chaos and destruction and disaster.
I stepped out of the ruins
and looked around me, to the right and then to the left.
But there was nothing to see.

I had a sense, like a dream really, a heavy fog
or a deja vu
of voices, loud and angry and insistent
of terror, panic, pandemonium
of screams of anguish and pain
of violence and torture and evil and murder
of dangerous pressure, building to sure catastrophe.

But that’s not real.
Instead there is an eerie silence,
an uneasy peacefulness
It seems best not to question it.
Hidden rage and hidden grief,
what happened to this child?

I take a tentative step forward, then two.
There is no one to stop me
no one watching me
no one threatening me
no one controlling me.
I can run and laugh and shout and dance
and no one punishes me.
I step forward out of the wreckage
and close the door firmly behind me
into a world of innocence
naivete
incredulity.
“Has anyone ever molested you?”
“No Mom!
I would tell you if anything like that had ever happened to me.”


Jackie Turner