PROTECTOR

 

align="center">PROTECTOR

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Pacing scorched
terrain over hell is night's child.

align="center">Murderer she is, she stabbed repeatedly and
fiercely

is what he said of her,
with malice and hate.

It's all true,
dropping pills in their whiskey glasses,

align="center">waiting in her room until they passed out.

She remembers?

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Sitting knee to chest on the
bare floor

watching skies darken
through her bare window.

By her side
a knife lie in wait.

Picking it up
she felt the weight in her hand,

she
turned the handle over feeling for her best grip.

align="center">She held the knife against her hot, damp cheek

finding coolness and comfort in the
objective steel.

Tears coursed
slowly down her face dampening her collar.

align="center">No tears for them or herself

align="center">or what she was about to do?oh no,

align="center">these were tears for her brothers and
sisters.

align="center">Motionless she listened.

align="center">Not yet.

Pain
throbbed from head to foot from their latest beating.

align="center">Her stomach grumbled; she was forever
hungry.

Inside her hurt had dulled
into numbness then burst into

bright
red, flaming fury as she watched them turn on

align="center">her younger brothers and sisters?oh no?she had to
stop them.

She knew then she would
kill them.

align="center">All was quiet except for a radio. No yelling or fists
hitting flesh?

it was
time.

She
stabbed over and over while a picture of

align="center">her baby sister's face, swollen and
bruised,

innocent body naked upon
filthy sheets,

played repeatedly in
her mind's eye.

She stabbed until
her own hands bled,

until blood ran
down her face and neck,

until her
arms burned with pain.

until blood
soaked the threadbare carpet?

until
she was sure they were dead?

his
eyes opened as she was poised to strike again.

align="center">With his last breath he grabbed the blade

from her startled hand to twist it
through her heart.

align="center">The man survived;

align="center">the woman and night's child died.

align="center">Now she roamed this desolate place, waiting,

forever sad for missing her
brothers and sisters.

He lived to
never heal,

to spend what remained
of life in a state home

telling
everyone what a

good father he had
been to his children.