• poem
    Paper angels,
    With smiles painted on
    Do you see what’s happening
    All around you, in the wee hours of dawn?


    It’s only once a year
    You’ll see the light of day
    And this time it’s tainted red
    Red with blood, red with rage

    It’s Christmas, year 2003
    The new baby is almost two
    She toddles around on unsure legs
    And everyone around her smiles and laughs

    I am a girl of seven,
    As jealous as I could be
    For although it’s not true
    It seems like mom and dad have forgotten me

    I open up my presents,
    Each one is wonderful and grand
    Suddenly it’s three years later
    And another baby has joined the caravan

    They circle around her,
    Focusing on the little one
    When her presents aren’t what she wants
    You’ll hear it from the middle one

    But that big one over there,
    Now about ten years old
    She just sits and smiles
    Watches it all unfold

    Paper angles, now she’s turned twelve
    She feels lost and alone
    She turns to a knife for comfort
    Can you see with painted eyes
    what others don’t if they are shown?

    Now comes new years eve
    A family tradition to uphold
    A night of cards and laughing
    Her plan will soon unfold,

    As she lays down the winning hand,
    A smile spreads across her face
    But still, dear paper angles
    She will continue to lose the race

    It’s a fight that she’s ashamed of
    One she’ll try to hide
    But when she digs that blade into her skin
    She wants go give in and die

    Memories of friends and happier times
    That’s what keep her alive today
    A sliver of hope in a sea of despair.
    But when she looks around her
    Her only thought is ‘does anybody care’


    School is coming to an end
    Soon the class will split
    Two halves going their separate ways
    Now she finds the courage to end it


    Dig the knife in deeper now
    Farther than you have ever gone
    You’re playing a deadly game of chess
    And you’ve made her the sacrificial pawn


    Did you notice her seat
    Empty every day?
    No longer there at lunch
    She cant come out to play


    She was only thirteen
    Still quite to young to die
    So why did you hand her the knife
    Tell her to dig it in until she’d cry


    You saw the pain right from the start
    But you looked on from the side
    Where were you to save her
    On the night that she died?


    Does anyone else miss her?
    I think probably not
    But the paper angles saw on Christmas day
    She wasn’t sitting in her usual spot.


    So for those of you
    Who never cared,
    Who taunted her and beat her down,
    Or who saw what was going on and just stared


    You drove her to the edge.
    I can’t say who pushed her to die
    But now, on Christmas day,
    The paper angles will surely cry