A string

Is set free

From your little girl’s

Tiny fingertips

And up rises

A glimpse of pink

Against the dismal sky

You tell her
She’ll be a princess
She can do anything
And she believes it
Because she believes you

On the playground
She scrapes her knee
Red gushing from soft skin
But you take her for ice cream
And it takes away the pain


Meanwhile

That pink balloon

Has fallen

Somewhere

You look up
She’s not so little anymore
Ice cream
Isn’t enough
And that white powder
Isn’t playground sand

She’s found her knight
But instead of a white horse
He comes galloping on lies and secrets
That were never a part
Of the fairytale that you promised

You mourn the loss
of your little girl
Who isn’t yet gone
But has been for years


And that pink balloon

Is gone now

Long hidden

Under piles of dirt

The empty air it promised

Has been released

And the pink

Isn’t even pink anymore

Yet you wonder
What happened
To your little girl
When you’re the one
Who put an empty promise
Into her tiny
Little fingers