Deviation Actions
Literature Text
Money is tight
A child is born
At best a trouble
At worst unwanted.
Still the child grows
With vacant eyes.
Wandering the streets
Because no one cares.
The child most fears
The screaming at home.
Still the child grows
With dark vacant eyes.
A teen with bruises—
A klutz everyone thinks—
Nobody seems to know
The child’s near the brink.
Still the child grows older
With hopeless vacant eyes.
The teen is almost grown
Sitting by the river alone
With pills or knife it could end
A motion, a swallow, that’s all.
Will someone please look
And see those vacant eyes
Left Alone
In the end
Reminders of the past
Now I know that it’s not the entire truth, and that anyone of any standing can suffer, but reading a piece like this reminds me of the classic morose song, “In the Ghetto”, by Elvis Presley. The character being sung about grows desperate and angry, resorts to crime to get a feed, and in the end, loses his life. That’s probably the $1.99 summary on it, but the point’s still there.
Safe to say, like the song in question, this has that sense of story-telling where we witness, as readers, the stunted growth of the child from youth to puberty, in a poor or violent household (for whatever reason). We look inside their mind and by the end, we can only feel sorrow and pity for their plight.
The last lines make me think, who can blame them? They’ve only known hopelessness their whole lives, they probably have nothing that can help them make their life better (lack of education, social skills etc.) Why not “simply” just end it all?
Needless to say, I feel this is very well done. You’ve given us some vivid imagery in this piece, emphasised a situation that needs fixing, and gave us an idea to make someone’s life a bit brighter. The repetition of “vacant eyes” works well for this piece too. Great effort! 