Trees blow hard and the wind breaks fast

As down the street the children laugh

And inside the little house on the lane

A girl stands beside her window pane



She smiles to see the others run and play

She wishes she could join them in their games

But she is not a mere child anymore

So she sits and waits for her mother’s return



Her grandmother asks, “Why not join in?”

“I am too old to play with them.”

Her grandmother smirks, and returns to the sink

The little girl sits and watches, as she thinks



Her mother leaves for hours at a time

Yet her grandmother never seems to mind

Though the look on her mother’s face tells a lot

The girl is too young to see what is the truth and what is not



Late at night her mother lies awake with tears in her eyes

The girl can’t recognize the weight of all the lies

What her mother hides, she doesn’t know.

She has only seen the anger when her mother doesn’t go



One time, her mother stayed home all day,

She kept screaming as if she was in terrible pain

The girl wishes she understood what was happening

But it seems so complicated and confusing



So, the girl waits for her mother to come home

She always just sits by the window all alone

Her mother will return with an empty laugh and glassy eyes

As she smiles and feeds her little girl nothing but lies



The girl will one day look back, with a heavy heart

At the time her mother’s addiction began to start